Postage stamps and postal history of Cyrenaica and Fezzan were united as the Italian colony of Libya. Stamps of colonial Cyrenaica were inscribed "Cirenaica" and printed at the Italian Government Printing Works. British stamps overprinted M.E.F. (Middle East Forces) were used from 1943 to 1948 after the area was captured by the British during World War II. From 1 July 1948 stamps overprinted "B.M.A. TRIPOLITANIA" were used. Cyrenaica enjoyed a brief period of internal autonomy in 1949-51 when the British authorities recognised Amir Mohammed Idris Al-Senussi as Emir of Cyrenaica, which ended on 24 December 1951 when Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan were unified as the Kingdom of
Greeks in Syria Assyrians made up the majority. In the South, Samaritans, Nabateans and Greco-Romans made up the majority near the end of the 2nd century. Throughout the Middle Ages, Byzantine Greeks self-identified as Romaioi or Romioi (Greek: Ῥωμαῖοι, Ρωμιοί, meaning "Romans") and Graikoi (Γραικοῖ, meaning "Greeks"). Linguistically, they spoke Byzantine or Medieval Greek, known as "Romaic" which is situated between the Hellenistic (Koine), and modern phases of the language. Byzantines, perceived themselves as the descendants of classical Greece, the political heirs of imperial Rome, and followers of the Apostles. Thus, their sense of "Romanity" was different from that of their contemporaries in