Anatolia: The Cradle of Civilizations

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HISTORIC AGES OF ANATOLIA

PALEOLITHIC AGE - Early Stone Age ( 600000 - 10000 B.C.)
MESOLITHIC AGE - Mid Stone Age ( 10000 - 8500 B.C.)
NEOLITHIC AGE - Late Stone Age ( 8500 - 5000 B.C.)
CALCOLITHIC AGE - Copper Age ( 5000 - 3000 B.C.)
BRONZE AGE ( 3000 - 2000 B.C.)
HATTI CIVILIZATION ( 2500 - 2000 B.C.)
TROY-II SETTLEMENT ( 2500 - 2000 B.C.)
HATTI and HITTITE PRINCIPALITIES PERIOD ( 2000 - 1750 B.C.)
GREAT HITTITE KINGDOM ( 1750 - 1200 B.C.)
HURRI CIVILIZATION
TROY-VI CIVILIZATION ( 1800 - 1275 B.C.)
AEGEAN MIGRATION AND INVASION FROM BALKANS ( 1200 B.C.)
THE ANATOLIAN PRINCIPALITIES DURING THE IRON AGE ( 1200 - 700 B.C.)
URARTU CIVILIZATION ( 900 - 600 B.C.)
THE CIVILIZATION OF PHRYGIA ( 750 - 300 B.C.)
LYDIA, CARIA and LYCIA CIVILIZATIONS ( 700 - 300 B.C.)
ION CIVILIZATION ( 1050 - 300 B.C.)
PERSIAN CONQUEST ( 545 - 333 B.C.)
HELLENISTIC and ROMAN AGE ( 333 B.C.-395 A.D.)
BYZANTINE CIVILIZATION ( 330 - 1453 A.D.)

SELJUK CIVILIZATION ( 1071 - 1300 A.D.)
OTTOMANS ( 1299 - 1923 A.D.)

LYDIANS



Lydia was situated in the Western part of Asia Minor, on the river Galis, with its main city Sardis. It was first mentioned by Homer already in the 8th century B.C. under the name Maeonia. It was celebrated for fertile soil, rich deposits of gold and silver. Lydia became most powerful under the dynasty of the Mermnadae, beginning about 685 BC. In the 6th century BC Lydian conquests transformed the kingdom into an empire. Under the rule of King Croesus, Lydia attained its greatest splendor. The empire came to an end, however, when the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great captured Sardis about 546 BC and incorporated Lydia into the Persian Empire. After the defeat of Persia by Alexander III, king of Macedonia, Lydia was brought under Greek - Macedonian control. Soon after that, Lydians were assimilated by Greeks, Greek language and Greek culture, and though Strabo in the 1st century A.D. talks about Lydians as an ethnos, they did not have much of their original language at that moment.

Lydians were the first ones to mint coins in the history of mankind. They made Gold, Silver and Electrum (a mixture of gold and silver) coins at Sardis.

Language

Lydian language belongs to New Anatolian languages, derived from Old Anatolian - Hittite, Luwian and Palaic. When the Hittite Empire fell, Anatolian city-states started a new epoch of Indo-European settlers of Asia Minor. These cities were inhabited both by Indo-European Hittites and non-Indo - European tribes like Hatti, Assyrians, Aramaeans. In the 7th century B.C. all East and Central Anatolian Indo-Europeans were practically assimilated by Semitic and other tribes, and Indo-European Hittites and Luwians had to move farther to the West, to the shores of the Aegean Sea.

Lydian was inherited directly from Hittite, but has a lot of its own new features. Lydian phonetics is more complicated: nasal vowels [a], [e] appeared; consonant system has several palatals for [s], [t], [d], [l], [n] very widely used. Palatals came from the combination of i + a consonant.

Lydian morphology also differs somehow from Hittite. Nouns are declined in pronominal declension, Hittite noun declension was almost completely lost. Accusative case is being replaced by dative in the meaning of direct object of the verb. Some verbal forms have endings derived not from Hittite same forms but from participles (for example, 3rd person plural has -l ending) or other verbal nouns.

Lydian has a wide choice of prefixes and particles with practically every word. Sometimes a personal pronoun has 3 particles before it, all of them meaning just emphasis.

Linguistic science has not yet learned much about Lydian, but the language is obviously Indo-European, and a lot of words represent their IE origin.

CROESUS

The expression "as rich as Croesus" comes from the legendary wealth of the king who reigned from 560 to 546 BC over Lydia in western Asia Minor. Gold from the mines and from the sands of the River Pactolus filled his coffers to overflowing. The Lydians in the time of Croesus, it is believed, were the first people to mint coins as money.

The fame of the splendid court of Croesus at Sardis attracted many visitors. One of these, according to a legend, was Solon, the lawgiver of the Greeks. The king proudly displayed his treasures and asked Solon who was the happiest man that he had met. Solon named two or three obscure men who had lived and died happily. Croesus was surprised and angry and said: "Man of Athens, dost thou count my happiness as nothing?" "In truth," replied Solon, "I count no man happy until his death, for no man can know what the gods may have in store for him."

There was indeed great misfortune in store for Croesus. Cyrus the Great of Persia, extending his vast domains, was soon threatening the kingdom of Lydia. Croesus consulted the oracle of Delphi in Greece. The oracle replied: "If Croesus goes to war he will destroy a great empire." So Croesus went out to meet the army of Cyrus and was utterly defeated, he destroyed his own great empire.

The old story goes on to relate that Cyrus ordered Croesus to be burned alive. When Croesus saw the flames creeping upward to consume him, he remembered the words of the wise Solon and cried out, "O Solon! Solon! Solon!" Supposedly Cyrus was so moved by the story of how Solon had warned the proud king that he ordered Croesus to be released. Cyrus asked to Croesus why he shouted Solon's name, and Croesus asked him another question "what your soldiers are doing now?", showing the Persian soldiers taking all the treasures and destroying everything; Cyrus replied "They are plundering your city"; then Croesus said "They are not plundering my city, it's your city now and your soldiers are destroying your city". After that short conversation Cyrus the Great stopped his soldiers.

HITTITES







Ancient people of Asia Minor and Syria who flourished from 1600 to 1200 B.C. The Hittites, a people of Indo-European connection, were supposed to have entered Cappadocia around 1800 B.C. The Hittite empire, with its capital at Bogazköy (also called as Hattusas), was the chief power and cultural force in Western Asia from 1400 to 1200 B.C. It was a loose confederation that broke up under the invasions (c.1200 B.C.) of the Thracians, Phrygians, and Assyrians. The Neo-Hittite kingdom (c.1050-c.700 B.C.) that followed was conquered by the Assyrians. The Hittites were one of the first peoples to smelt iron successfully. They spoke an Indo-European language.

Because the Hittites were newcomers to Anatolia they were basically forced to settle where they did because they couldn't find a better place. The Hittite population would largely have consisted of peasants. There was a recognized class of craftsmen especially potters, cobblers, carpenters and smiths, and though metal principally worked was bronze, the smelting of iron was already understood and a high value was set on this metal. The medium of exchange was silver, of which the Taurus Mountains contained an abundant supply; however, it is not known how this potential source of wealth was controlled by the Hittite kings. Traces of metallurgy are found in Hattusas. Textual and material ranging from goldsmiths to shoemakers and to pottery. The Hittite economy was based on agriculture. The main crops were emmer wheat and barley. It took at least 22,000 hectares of arable land to meet the annual needs of Hattusas. Honey was a significant item in the diet. Domestic livestock consisted of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and perhaps water-buffalo. Donkeys were used as pack animals. They used also dogs as their best friends. Hittites used cuneiform script on their inscriptions. Also they used the hieroglyph form on some inscription, intended for ordinary people to understand the contents easily.

The king was supreme ruler, military commander, judicial authority and high priest. Surrounding him was a large class of nobles and dignitaries who, especially in the earlier centuries, possessed considerable power and were largely related to the king by blood. Throughout, the government of the most important cities and provinces was assigned by the king to members of his own family, each bounded to him by ties of homage and fealty. In later centuries, the same principle was extended to native vassal who became members of the royal family by marriage. The oath of fealty was a personal matter and so it was necessary, on the death of a kind, for all vassal treaties to be renewed by his successor. This feudal principle was in fact the basis of Hittite society as a whole. The nobles possessed large manors, each with its own peasants and artisans, who held their tenements on condition of payment of rent in kind or performance of appropriate services. A peasant could leave his holdings to his son; a craftsman could sell it, with the obligation passing to the buyer; but the lord had the right to choose or approve the new feudatory and invest him with the obligation.

A notable characteristic of the Hittite state is the prominent part played by women, especially the queen. Pudupepa, wife of Hattusilis III, is regularly associated with her husband in treaties an documents of the state and she even carried on correspondence with foreign kings and queens in her own right. Both she and the last queen of Suppiluliumas I remained in office until their husbands' death; thus it is inferred that the Hilife. There is some reason to believe that a matrilineal system once prevailed in Anatolia and the independent position of the Hittite queen could be a result of this. The Hittite family was of the normal patriarchal type: the father gave his daughter aqua in marriage; the bridegroom paid him the bride-price and thereafter took the bride and possessed her; if she was taken in adultery he had the right to decide her fate.

The collection of roughly 200 Hittite laws, complied in a single work in two tablets, contain laws of different periods showing a constant development towards milder and more humane punishment. The most primitive clause prescribes drawing and quartering for an agricultural offense. Other capital crimes are rape, or in case of a slave, disobedience and sorcery.

Slavery was severe. The master had the power of life and death. In most cases, it is stated that a animal was to be substituted for the man and a compensation of some sorts was paid. The spirit of Hittite law was more humane then that of the Babylonian or Assyrian legal codes.

The Hittite weakness was that they never had a reliable native population. It was solved by the settlements of deportees, who retained royal control even when put beside native communities.

They were influenced by Hatti civilization to a great extend in religion, mythology, art and culture. Although Hittites were the rulers of the country, their kings adopted Hatti names.

Although the Hittite Empire vanished thousands of years ago, it has by no means been forgotten, and its capital Hattusha has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Moreover, an enlarged copy of a cuneiform tablet found here hangs in the United Nations building in New York. This tablet is a peace treaty concluded after the Battle of Kadesh between the Hittite king Hattusili III and the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II about 3260 years ago, demonstrating to modern statesmen that international treaties are a tradition going back to the earliest civilizations.

The Hittite Kings

KING ROYAL RELATIONSHIP MIDDLE CHRONOLOGY

Pithana early 18th c.
Anitta son of Pithana mid 18th c.
Labarna first known Hittite king 1680-1650
Hattusili I nephew/adopted son of Labarna 1650-1620
Mursili I grandson/adopted son of Hattusili I 1620-1590
Hantili assassin and brother-in-law of Mursili I 1590-1560
Zidanta I son-in-law of Hantili 1560-1550
Ammuna son of Hantili 1550-1530
Huzziya I son of Ammuna? 1530-1525
Telipinu son of Zidanta I?/brother-in-law of Ammuna 1525-1500
Tahurwaili ?
Alluwamna son-in-law of Huzziya I
Hantili II son of Alluwamna 1500-1450
Zidanta II ?
Huzziya II ?
Muwatalli I ?
Tudhaliya II son of Huzziya II? 1450-1420
Arnuwanda I son-in-law of Tudhaliya II 1420-1400
Tudhaliya III son of Arnuwanda I 1400-1380
Tudhaliya son of Tudhaliya III 1380?
Hattusili II ? ?
Suppiluliuma I son of Tudhaliya III or Hattusili II 1380-1340
Arnuwanda II son of Suppiluliuma I 1340-1339
Mursili II son of Suppiluliuma I 1339-1306
Muwatalli II son of Mursili II 1306-1282
Mursili III son of Muwatalli II 1282-1275
Hattusili III son of Mursili II 1275-1250
Tudhaliya IV son of Hattusili III 1250-1220
Karunta son of Muwatalli/cousin of Tudhaliya IV ?
Arnuwanda III son of Tudhaliya IV 1220-1215
Suppiluliuma II son of Tudhaliya IV 1215-1200


Hittite Religion

The religion of the Hittite people was concerned primarily with ensuring the favor of the local deity, whose in most cases was that of a fertility god controlling the weather. In most shrines he had a family and wife, and the note of a mother-goddess is another indication suggesting an early matrilineal society. With the unification of the country under the kings of Hattush, a centralized religion developed in which the numerous local deities were combined into a complicated pantheon. It became the kings duty to tour the country and officiate at the most important festivals, chiefly during the winter months. A king who allowed his military duties to override that of the gods, which would lead to dire consequences for the Hittite state. Mursilis II is particularly notable for his duty to religion. There exist several prayer at which he addresses the gods at a time when the nation was afflicted with serious plague or epidemic. In these prayers, he pleas that he himself has given no cause for divine anger and though his father has, he begs for the gods to relent and not to punish the innocent with the guilty.

The names of the deities reflect the ethnic diversity of the Hittite kingdom. The oldest of the gods was that of the Hattia, a god who lead the king to victory in battle. Later, especially in 13th century BC under the influence of Queen Puduhepa, Hurrian deities entered the pantheon and the leading Hurrian pair, Teshub and Hebat, were identified with their Hittite counterparts, the goddess taking a subordinate place.

The religion of the Hittites was an amalgam (mixture). It incorporated popular elements of indigenous to central Anatolia with some external influences largely of Hurrian origin. These external influences appealed particularly to the royal court and is most clearly evident in the rock-cut shrine of Yazilikaya. Water was never far from the peoples thoughts, especially in the heat of the summer, and shrines or relieves at Hattusas is most likely dedicated to the weather god Teshub and thus was the home of his cult.

About 1200 meters to the northeast of the main site of Hattusas is the famous rock shrine of Yazilikaya. There is perhaps a road or at least a Processional Way from the city to Yazilikaya. The relieves of Yazilikaya show gods and goddess wearing the horned headdress which was an originally Mesopotamian characteristic emblem of divinity. The most imposing is worn by the weather god Teshub with goddess wearing their own distinctive crowns. The tradition of depicting divinities standing on an animal is of Hurrian origin. An interpretation of Yazilikaya naturally depends on the understanding the shrines purpose, which is continually debated.

Cremation was widespread in central Anatolia. From textual sources it is known to be the funerary custom of the Hittite kings. The ordinary people of Hattusas, however, were either buried or cremated. Funerary offerings were rather smaller from a funeral feast.



Gods

The Hittites had an abundant number of local cult deities and sets of local pantheons. As the government became more centralized, particularly during the imperial period around 1400 - 1200 B.C., there were efforts to equate many of these local deities and form a state pantheon. Such a pantheon was headed by the Weather-god/Storm-god, who also represented the mountains, and his consort - usually the earth goddess, who was also attached to the waters of rivers and the sea. The Hittites themselves write of 'the thousand gods of Hatti', and more than eight-hundred such names have been discovered. The associated myths have both Hittite and Hurrian content, with the origin of many suspected to be Hurrian. The Kumarbis-Ullukummis myth is chief among the Hurrian tales and the Illuyankas stories and missing god myths of Telipinus and the missing Storm-god are thought to be more Hattic. There also exist fragments of a Hittite version of the Gilgamesh epic and many Akkadian deities were worshiped outright. Doubtless the Hatti left their mark in Hittite religion as well.


Hittite and Hurrian deities.

Alalu
He was the king in heaven in olden days and Anus was the first among the gods. Anus served as his cupbearer for 9 years before defeating him and dispatching him to under the earth.

Anu (Akkadian in origin)
While Alalus was king in heaven, Anus was more powerful. He served as Alalus' cup bearer for 9 years and then defeated him, dispatching him to under the earth. He took his seat on the throne and had Kumarbis as his cupbearer. Likewise, after nine years Kumarbis rebelled, chased Anus - who fled in the sky like a bird, and bit off and swallowed his phallus. In this act Anus had some revenge by impregnating Kumarbis with the Storm-god, the Aranzahus (Tigris) river, and Tasmisus. He then hid himself in heaven. He advised the Storm-god on the places where he might exit Kumarbis. After the Storm-god's birth, they plotted to destroy Kumarbis and, with his other children, apparently succeeded.

Kumarbi - 'the father of all gods' according to the Hurrian.
He is sometimes equated with Enlil and Dagan. His city is Urkis. He thinks wise thoughts and carries a staff. He served as Anus's cup-bearer for 9 years and then rebelled, chased Anus, and bit off and swallowed his phallus, thereby becoming impregnated with the Storm-god, the Aranzahus (Tigris) river, and Tasmisus. With that news, he spat out Aranzahus and Tasmisus of on Mount Kanzuras. The Storm-god begins to exit through Kumarbis's 'tarnassus', causing him to moan in pain. He asks Ayas to give him his son to devour, which he does. Ayas has 'poor' magic worked on him and his 'tarnassus' is secured, so the Storm-god exits through his 'good place' instead. He is then presumably defeated by the Storm-god, Anus, and his offspring. During a plot to overthrow the Storm-god, he lay with a Rock as if it were a woman. He instructs Imbaluris, his messenger to send a message to the Sea, that Kumarbis should remain father of the gods. The Sea hosts a feast for him and later Kumarbis' Rock gives birth to Ullikummis. Kumarbis announces that his son will defeat the Storm-god, his city Kummiya, his brother Tasmisus and the gods from the sky. He charges Imbaluris to seek out the Irsirra deities to hide Ullikummis from the Sun-god, the Storm-god, and Ishtar.

Imbaluris
He is Kumarbis' messenger. He is sent to warn the Sea that Kumarbis' must remain the father of the gods.

Mukisanus

He is Kumarbis' right arm.

Hannahanna (Nintu, Mah) - the mother of all the gods.

She is associated with Gulses. After Telepinu disappears, the Storm-god complains to her. She sends him to search himself and when he gives up, she dispatches a bee, charging it to purify the god by stinging his hands and feat and wiping his eyes and feet with wax. She recommends to the Storm-god that he pay the Sea-god the bride-price for the Sea-god's daughter on her wedding to Telipinu. Apparently she also disappears in a fit of anger and while she is gone, cattle and sheep are stifled and mothers, both human and animal take no account of their children. After her anger is banished to the Dark Earth, she returns rejoicing. Another means of banishing her anger is through burning brushwood and allowing the vapor to enter her body. After Inara consulted with her, she gave her a man and land. Soon after, Inara is missing and when Hannahanna is informed thereof by the Storm-god's bee, she apparently begins a search with the help of her Female attendant a. She appears to consult with the Sun-god and the War-god, but much of the text is missing.

Upelluri (Ubelluris)
Similar to Atlas, this giant carries the world on his shoulders. The olden gods built the earth and heaven upon him though he did not notice, even when those two were separated with a cleaver. On the direction of Kumarbis' messenger Imbaluris, the Issira deities place Ullikummis on his right shoulder where the child grows. Ea interviews him, in search of Ullikummis and Upelluri admits to a small pain on his shoulder, although he can't identify which god is causing it.

Storm/Weather-god (Hurrian's Teshub, Taru, Luwian's Tarhun - 'The Conqueror'), 'The king of Kummiya', 'King of Heaven, Lord of the land of Hatti'.
He is chief among the gods and his symbol is the bull. As Teshub he has been pictured as a bearded man astride two mountains and bearing a club. He is a god of battle and victory, especially when the battle is with a foreign power. As Taru, he is the consort of Wurusemu. He was the child of Anus and Kumarbis - conceived along with Tasmisus and the Aranzahus (Tigris) river when Kumarbis bit off and swallowed Anus' phallus. He is, however, considered Ea's son in the myth of Ullikummis. He is informed by Anus of the possible exits from Kumarbis, and tries to exit through Kumarbis's 'tarnassas', causing him great pain. With the 'tarnassas' blocked, he exits through Kumarbis' 'good place'. He plots with Anus, Tasmisus, and Aranzhus to destroy Kumarbis, and apparently succeeds seizing kingship in heaven. He sent rain after the fallen Moon-god/Kashku when he fell from heaven.

Alerted to the imminent arrival of the Sun-god, who in some myths is his son, he has Tasmisus prepare a meal for their guest and listens to his report about the sudden appearance of the giant Ullikummis. He and Tasmisus then leave the kuntarra and are led to Mount Hazzi by his sister, Ishtar, where they behold the monstrous creature. He looks upon Kumarbis' son with fear and Ishtar chides him. Later, emboldened, he has Tasmisus prepare his bulls and wagon for battle, and has him call out the thunderstorms, lightning and rains. Their first battle resulted in his incomplete defeat. He dispatches Tasmisus to his wife, Hebat, to tell her that he must remain in a 'lowly place' for a term. When Tasmisus returns, he encourages the Storm-god to seek Ea in the city Abzu/Apsu and ask for the 'tablets with the words of fate' (Tablets of Destiny? 'me'?). After Ea cleaves off Ullukummis' feet, he spurs Tasmisus and the Storm-god on to battle the crippled giant. Despite the diorite man's boasting, the Storm-god presumably defeats him.

He fought with the Dragon Illuyankas in Kiskilussa and was defeated. He called the gods for aid, asking that Inaras prepare a celebration. She does so and when the dragon and his children have gorged themselves on her feast, the mortal Hupasiyas binds him with a rope. Then the Storm-god, accompanied by the gods, sets upon them and destroys them.

In another version of that myth, he looses his eyes and heart to Illuyankas after his first battle. He then marries a poor mortal woman and marries their son to Illuyankas daughter. He has the son ask for his eyes and heart. With their return, he attacks the dragon again. When his son sides with Illuyankas, the Storm-god kills them both. When his son, Telepinus, is missing he despairs and complains to the Sun-god and then to Hannahannas, who tells him to search for him himself. After searching Telepinus' city he gives up.

In other versions of this myth, it is the Storm-god who is missing. One is almost exactly the same, and in another, he journeys to the Dark Earth in his anger, and is returned with the help of his mother - here Wuruntemu/Ereshkigal/the Sun-goddess of Arinna. He sends Telipinu to recover the Sun-god who had been kidnapped by the Sea-god. The Sea-god is so intimidated that he gives Telipinu his daughter in marriage but demands a bride-price from the Storm-god. After consulting with Hannahanna, he pays the price of a thousand sheep and a thousand cattle. He notices his daughter, Inara, is missing and sends a bee to Hannahanna to have her search for her.

Seris (Serisu)
This is one of the bulls sacred to the Storm-god. In preparation for battle, the Storm-god has Tasmisus anoint his horns with oil and drive him up Mount Imgarra with Tella and the battle wagon.

Tella (Hurris)
This is another bull sacred to the Storm-god. In preparation for battle, the Storm-god has Tasmisus plate his tail with gold and drive him up Mount Imgarra with Seris and the battle wagon.

Aranzahas - The Tigris river deified.
A child of Anus and Kumarbis, he was the brother of the Storm-god and Tasmisus, spat out of Kumarbis' mouth onto Mount Kanzuras. Later he colludes with Anus and the Storm-god to destroy Kumarbis.

Tasmisus
A child of Anus and Kumarbis, he is conceived along with the Storm-god and Aranzahus. The brother of the Storm-god and Aranzahus, he was spat out of Kumarbis upon Mount Kanzuras. Later he colludes with Anus and the Storm-god to destroy Kumarbis. He serves as the Storm-god's attendant. He spies the Sun-god approaching and informs the Storm-god that this visit bodes ill. At the Storm-god's command he has a meal set up for their visitor. After the Sun-god's tale, he and the Storm-god depart and are met by Ishtar, who takes them to Mt. Hazzi near Ugarit, where they can see Ullikummis. The Storm-god has him take his bulls up Mt. Imgarra and prepare them for battle. He is also ordered to bring forth the storms, rains, winds, and lightning. After their defeat, he is dispatched by the Storm-god to Hebat, to tell her that he must remain in a 'lowly place' for a term. He returns and encourages the Storm-god to seek Ea in the city Abzu/Apsu and ask for the 'tablets with the words of fate'. After Ea cleaves off Ullukummis' feet, he spurs Tasmisus and the Storm-god on to battle the crippled giant.

Suwaliyattas
He is a warrior god and probably the brother of the Storm-god.

Hebat (Hurrian name) (Hepit, Hepatu)
The matronly wife of the Storm-god. She is sometimes depicted standing on her sacred animal, the lion. After the Storm-god and Astabis' failed attacks on Ullikummis, the giant forced her out of her temple, causing her to lose communication with the gods. She frets that Ullikummis may have defeated her husband and expresses her concern to her servant Takitis, charging him to convene the assembly of the gods and bring back word of her husband. Presumably she is brought word of his defeat. Tasmisus visits her in the high watchtower, telling her that the Storm-god is consigned to a 'lowly place' for a length of time. She is the mother of Sharruma.

Wurusemu, (Wuruntemu?), 'Sun Goddess of Arrina', 'mistress of the Hatti lands, the queen of heaven and earth', 'mistress of the kings and queens of Hatti, directing the government of the King and Queen of Hatti'
This goddess is later assimilated with Hebat. She made the cedar land. She is the primary goddess in Arrina, with Taru as her consort. She is a goddess of battle and is associated with Hittite military victory. She is the mother of the Storm-god of Nerik, and thereby possibly associated with Ereshkigal. She aids in returning him from the underworld.

Sharruma (Hurrian name), 'the calf of Teshub'
The son of Teshub and Hebat, this god is symbolized by a pair of human legs, or a human head on a bull's body. He is later identified with the Weather-god of Nerik and Zippalanda.

Takitis
He is Hebat's servant. After Hebat was driven from her temple he is told of her concern for her husband and charged with convening the assembly of the gods and returning with word of her husband's fate.

Mezzullas
She is the daughter of the Storm-god and the Sun-goddess of Arinna. She has influence with her parents.

Zintuhis
She is the granddaughter of the Storm-god and the Sun-goddess of Arinna.

Telepinu(s) 'the noble god'
An agricultural god, he is the favorite and firstborn son of the Storm-god. He 'harrows and plows. He irrigates the fields and makes the crops grow. He flies into a rage and storms off, losing himself in the steppe and becoming overcome with fatigue. With his departure, fertility of the land, crops and herds disappears and famine besets man and god. Hannahannas's bee finds him, stings his hands and feet, and wipes his eyes and feet with wax, purifying him. This further infuriates him, and he wrecks further havoc with the rivers and by shattering houses and windows. Eventually, the evil and malice is removed through magic by Kamrusepas, but not before Telepinus thunders with lightning. Telepinus returns home, restoring fertility and tending to the life and vitality of the royal family. His prosperity and fertility is symbolized by a pole suspending the fleece of a sheep. In other versions of this myth, the Storm-god or the Sun-god and several other gods are missing instead. He is asked by his father to recover the Sun-god from the Sea-god, and so intimidates the Sea-god that he is given his daughter as a bride.

Ullikummi(s), the diorite man
He is born of Kumarbis and the Rock. This god is made entirely of diorite. He was born to be used as a weapon to defeat the Storm-godand his allies. Kumarbis had him delivered to the Irsirra deities to keep him hidden from the Storm-god, the Sun-god, and Ishtar. After the Irsirra deities presented him to Ellil, they placed him on the shoulder of Upelluri where he grows an acre in a month. After 15 days he grows enough so that he stands waist deep in the sea when the Sun-god and he notice each other. Alerted by the Sun-god, the Storm-god eventually prepares for battle atop Mount Imgarra, yet their first battle results in an incomplete victory. He drives Hebat from her temple, cutting off her communication with the other gods. Astabis leads seventy gods on attack against him, attempting to draw up the water from around him, perhaps in order to stop his growth. They fall into the sea and he grows to be 9000 leagues tall and around, shaking the heavens, the earth, pushing up the sky, and towering over Kummiya. Ea locates him and cuts off his feet with the copper knife that separated the heaven from the earth. Despite his wounds he boasts to the Storm-god that he will take the kingship of heaven. Presumably, he is none-the-less defeated.

Sun-god (of Heaven)

Probably an Akkadian import, this god is one of justice and is sometimes the king of all gods. An ally of the Storm-god, he notices the giant Ullikummis in the sea and visited the Storm-god, refusing to eat until he reports his news. After he has done so, the Storm-god proclaims that the food on the table shall become pleasant, which it does, and so the Sun-god enjoys his meal and returns to his route in heaven. When Telepinus disappears, bringing a famine, he arranges a feast, but it is ineffective in assuaging their hunger. At the Storm-god's complaint, he dispatches an eagle to search for the god, but the bird is unsuccessful. After the bee discovers Telepinus, he has man perform a ritual. In another version of the missing god myth, he is one of the missing gods. He keeps several sheep. At the end of the day, he travels through the nether-world. He was kidnapped by the Sea-god and released when Telipinu came for him. In a longer version of that story, the Sea-god caught him in a net, possibly putting him into a Kukubu-vessel when he fell. During his absence, Hahhimas (Frost) took hold.

Hapantallis
He is the Sun-god's shepherd.

Moon-god (Hurrian Kashku)
He fell upon the 'killamar', the gate complex, from heaven and disappeared. Storm-god/Taru rain-stormed after him, frightening him. Hapantali went to him and uttered the words of a spell over him. While known to bestow ill omens, he can be appeased by sheep sacrifice.

The Sea, the Waters
She is told by Imbaluris that 'Kumarbis must remain father of the gods'. Struck with fear by this message, she makes ready here abode and prepares to act as hostess for a feast for Kumarbis. This feast may have served as a meeting of Mother-goddesses who delivered Kumarbis' child by the Rock, Ullikummis.

The Sea-god
He quarreled and kidnapped the Sun-god of Heaven. When Telipinu came to recover the Sun-god, the Sea-god was so intimidated that he also gave him his daughter. he later demanded a bride-price for her of the Storm-god, and was eventually given a thousand cattle and a thousand sheep. In another version, he caught the Sun-god in a net as he fell, and may have sealed him in a Kukubu-vessel, allowing Hahhimas (Frost to take hold of most of the other gods. He questions the fire in its role in one of Kamrusepa's healing spells.

Inaras
Daughter of the Storm-god and goddess of the wild animals of the steppe. After the Storm-god's initial defeat by Illuyankas, she follows his request to set up a feast. She recruits Hupasiayas of Zigaratta, to aid in revenge on Illuyankas, by taking him as a lover. She then sets about luring Illuyankas and his children to a feast. After the dragon and his children gorge themselves on her meal, Hupasiayas binds him with a rope. Then the Storm-god sets upon them and defeats them. She then gives Hupasiayas a house on a cliff to live in, yet warns him not to look out the window, lest he see his wife and children. He disobeys her, and seeing his family begs to be allowed to go home. Gurney speculates that he was killed for his disobedience. She consults with Hannahanna, who promises to give her land and a man. She then goes missing and is sought after by her father and Hannahanna with her bee.

Illuyankas - the Dragon.
He defeated the Storm-god in Kiskilussa. Later he was lured from his lair with his children by a well dressed Inaras with a feast. After they were too engorged to get into their lair again, the Storm-god, accompanied by the other gods, killed him. In another version of the myth, he defeated the Storm-god and stole his eyes and heart. Later, his daughter married the son of the Storm-god. Acting on the Storm-god's instruction, his son asked for the eyes and heart. When these were returned to him, the Storm-god vanquished Illuyankas, but slew his son as well when the youth sided with the dragon. The ritual of his defeat was invoked every spring to symbolize the earth's rebirth.

Hedammu
He is a serpent who loved Ishtar.

Irsirra deities
These gods who live in the dark earth are charged by Kumarbis through Imbaluris to hide Ullikummis from the sky gods, the Sun-god, the Storm-god, and Ishtar. They are also charged with placing the child on the shoulder of Upelluri. Later they accept the child and deliver it to Ellil, before placing it on Upelluri's right shoulder.

Hapantalliyas/Hapantalli
He took his place at the Moon-god's side when he fell from heaven on the gate complex and uttered a spell.

Kamrusepa(s) (Katahziwuri)
She is the goddess of magic and healing. She witnessed and announced the Moon-god's fall from heaven on to the gate complex. She is the goddess of magic and healing. After Telepinus has been found, yet remains angry, she is set to cure him of his temper. She performs an elaborate magical ritual, removing his evil and malice. In another tablet, she performs the spell of fire, which removes various illnesses, changing them to a mist which ascends to heaven, lifted by the Dark Earth. The Sea-god questions the fire on its role.

Astabis (Zamama, Akkadian Ninurta)
He is a Hurrian warrior god. After the Storm-god's first attack on Ullikummis is unsuccessful, he leads seventy gods in battle wagons on an attack on the diorite giant. They try to draw the water away from him, perhaps in order to stop his growth, but they fall from the sky and Ullikummis grows even larger, towering over the gate of Kummiya.

Uliliyassis
He is a minor god who, properly attended to, removes impotence.

Kurunta
This god's symbol is the stag. He is associated with rural areas.

Kubaba
She is the chief goddess of the Neo-Hittites, she became Cybebe to the Phrygians and Cybele to the Romans. She was known as Kybele in Anatolia.

Yarris
He is a god of pestilence. A festival was held for him every autumn.

Hasamelis
He is a god who can protect travelers, possibly by causing them to be invisible.

Zashapuna
He is the chief god of the town of Kastama, held in greater regard there than the Storm-god, possibly gaining such influence through drawing lots with the other gods.

Zaliyanu
She is the wife of Zashapuna.

Zaliyanu
She is the concubine of Zashapuna.

Papaya
One of the deities who sat under the Hawthorn tree awaiting the return of Telipinus.

Istustaya
One of the deities who sat under the Hawthorn tree awaiting the return of Telipinu.

Miyatanzipa
One of the deities who sat under the Hawthorn tree awaiting the return of Telipinu. (S)he? also sat under Thippiyas tree when Hannahanna found the hunting bag.

Fate-goddesses
They were among the deities who sat under the Hawthorn tree awaiting the return of Telipinu. In one myth, they and the Mother-goddesses are missing.

Dark-goddess
One of the deities who sat under the Hawthorn tree awaiting the return of Telipinu.

Tutelary-deity, (Sumerian Lamma)
One of the deities who sat under the Hawthorn tree awaiting the return of Telipinu.

Uruzimu
A deity involved in returning the lost Storm-god of Nerik.

Hahhimas (Frost)
When the Sea-god captures the Sun-god, he takes hold of the other gods and of the land's plants and animals, paralyzing them. He is half-brother to Hasamili's brothers and spares them from his grip.

Akkadian Import Gods
Anu
See above.

Antu
Anu's female counterpart, imported to the Hitties through the Hurrians.

Ellil
He is presented with Ullikummis by the Irsirra deities and declares that the child will bring the mightiest battles and an awesome rival to the Storm-god. Later, Ea and presumably the Storm-god present before him a case against Kumarbis' for his creation of Ullikummis. He counters with Kumarbis' good record of worship and sacrifice and is in turn countered with Ea's testimony describing Ullikummis.

Ninlil
Ellil's wife. She was imported by way of the Hurrians.

Lelwanis (Lilwani, Ereshkigal, sometimes assimilated with Ishtar), 'Sun of the Earth'
Goddess of the earth and the nether-world, appeasement of her through sheep sacrifices helps remove threats from evil omens.

Ereshkigal
This goddess is the mother of the Storm-god. She plays a role in returning him from the underworld by opening the gates of the Dark Earth.

Ayas (Ea)
He is the keeper of the 'old tablets with the words of fate'. The Ullikummis myth has him as the father of the Storm-god. He attends Kumarbis and fetches that god's son to be devoured as a means of releaving Kumarbis pains from the Storm-god. He advises Kumarbis to have experts work 'poor' magic to aid him in his distress, bringing bulls and sacrifices of meal. This magic helps secure Kumarbis's 'tarnassus'. He is prevailed upon by the Storm-god following his defeat by Ullikummis. He and presumably the Storm-god present a case against Kumarbis' for his creation of Ullikummis before Ellil. Rebutting Ellil's defense that Kumarbis is well behaved regarding worship and sacrifices, Ea proclaims that Ullikummis 'will block off heaven and the gods holy houses.' He seeks out Upelluri, and after interviewing him, locates Ullukummis feet on Upelluri's shoulder. He charges the olden gods to deliver the copper knife with which they severed heaven from earth, in order to cut through Ullukummis' feet. He then spurs Tasmisus and the Storm-god on to fight the crippled giant.

Tapkina (Hurrian) (Damkina)
Ea's wife, imported from the Akkadians by way of the Hurrians.

Shaushka (Hurrian) (Ishtar)
She takes the form of a winged female standing on a lion.
She spies her brothers, the Storm-god and Tasmisus, leaving the kuntarra following word of the appearance of Ullikummis. She leads them by hand, up Mount Hazzi, from which they can view the giant. When the Storm-god is vexed and fearful at the site of Kumarbis' son, she chides him. Later, she takes up her galgalturi/harp and sings to the blind and deaf Ullikummis, but her folly is exposed to her by a great wave from the sea, who charges her to seek out her brother who is yet to be emboldened to the inevitable battle. She was loved by the serpent Hedammu.

Ninatta
Shaushka's attendant.

Kulitta
Shaushka's attendant.

Demons
Various rituals were performed to call upon demons for protection or to drive away baneful deities summoned by sorcerers.

Alauwaimis
Properly propitiated with ritual, libation, and goat sacrifice, this demon drives away evil sickness.

Tarpatassis
Properly propitiated with ritual and the sacrifice of a buck, this demon staves off sickness and grants long, healthy life.

Mortals
Hupasiya
He is a resident of Ziggaratta. He is recruited by Inaras to aid in defeating Illuyankas. He agrees to her plan after eliciting her promise to sleep with him. When Illuyankas and his children are gorged on Inaras's feast, he ties them up for the Storm-god to kill. he is set up in a house by Inaras with the instructions not to look out the window while she is away, lest he see his family. He does, and begs to go home. Here the text is broken and some researches assume that he is killed.

Cosmology

The olden gods built heaven and earth upon Upelluri. They had a copper knife which they used to cleave the heaven from the earth, after which they stored it in ancient storehouses and sealed them up - only to open them and retrieve it for use on Ullikummis.

Kuntarra house
The house of the gods in heaven.

The Dark Earth, i.e. the Underworld.
It has an entrance with gates. It holds bronze or iron palhi-vessels with lead lids. That which enters them, perishes within and doesn't return. Telipinu and Hannahanna's anger is banished there.

HATTI CIVILIZATION (2500-2000 B.C.)

The people known as Hattis are amongst the oldest settlers in Anatolian history. They ruled central Anatolia for about 500 years. Small city kingdoms were their favorite type of settlement units. They spoke a totally different language than the other influential Anatolian civilizations. There are signs of Mesopotamian influence on Hatti art and culture.

The main cities Mahmatlar, Horoztepe, Alacahoyuk and Hattus are inside the Kizilirmak (Red River, a large river in central Anatolia) bend.

They believed in a number of gods representing various acts of nature in the form of animals. Some statues of their most popular gods are on exhibition in some major museums of Turkey.

HATTI AND HITTITE PRINCIPALITIES PERIOD ( 2000 - 1750 B.C.)

By the end of the 3rd millenium B.C. a large scale migration took place mainly from North Europe to the mild weathered south. One of the strong elements of the Indo-European people, Hittites gravitated to Anatolia through Caucasia while Hatti principalities were ruling the land.

These newcomers did not invade the land suddenly. They settled along side the existing people and set their own settlement units in time. Only after a long time, as a lot of Hittite principalities emerged, they claimed the rule of the land, Anatolia. They never destroyed the existing people and their cities. But instead, they mixed with the Hattis and other people of Anatolia. They even shared their gods, goddesses, art, culture and a large amount of words from Hatti language.

By 1750 B.C. Hittites were the only rulers of Anatolia.

PHYRGIANS







Ancient Phrygia in the west of the Anatolian plateau, the country around the sources of the Sakarya Nehri (river) within the triangle of the modern cities of Afyon, Eskisehir and Ankara, was named after the western Indo-Europeans who came here from Europe around 1200 BC and left their mark as skilled craftsmen with a culture of their own. It was a country clearly with many towns and cities, lying on the routes to the east from Lydia and Caria.

Today it has only three major cities: Afyon, the opium city, Eskisehir, a hub of industry and the main railroad junction, and Kütahya, a centre for ceramics and the mining of brown coal. Here in many places the westerlies and southerlies can still carry rain deep into the mountains, bringing denser settlement and a greater degree of cultivation in their train. This farming potential enabled Phrygia even in early classical times to develop a powerful kingdom of its own with many towns and cities. Its fringes, where east met west, were a battleground for Persians and Lydians, Romans and Galatians, Arabs and Romans, Crusaders and Seljuks, Ottomans and Mongols, Byzantines and Turks. Ruins and age-old monuments abound up on the rolling plateau around the upper reaches of the Sakarya, with here and there towering rocky outcrops and a few scraggy trees, although nowadays signs of settlement are few and far between.

The Phrygian language, which died out in the 6th c. AD, was closely related to Greek, as can be seen from 80 ancient Phrygian inscriptions (7th-4th c. BC.), written in a script rather like Greek and over 110 neo-Phrygian writings in Greek from Roman times.

As Thracian invaders, the Phrygians played a decisive role in the destruction of the Hittite Kingdom and the fall of Troy. Their independent Phrygian kingdom of the 8th and 7th c BC maintained close contacts with the Aryans in the east and the Greeks in the west. Its early history is only briefly chronicled (Herodotus), recounting the suicide of its last king, Midas, in Gordion when it fell to the Cimmerians (676 BC.). With the establishment of the Galatians in eastern Phrygia the fertility cult of Cybele, the mother goddess, spread widely amongst town dwellers, while country folk tended to worship Men, the moon god, ruler of Paradise and the Underworld. In 188 BC Phrygia came under Pergamum, followed by Rome, who made it a province in 133 BC.

The early spread of Christianity here was largely due to St Paul but the 2nd c AD also saw the development of two extreme sects: Montanism, derived from the locally born Prophet Montanus who preached that the end of the world was high, and Novationism, named after the Roman theologian and later Bishop Novatian, whose followers called themselves "the pure", in Greek "katharoi" (hence the Cathar heresy of the Middle Ages) and refused to allow any lapsed Christians back into the Church.

Phrygians

The Phrygians arrived in Anatolia in 1200 BC, among the migrating tribes known as the "people of the Aegean Sea". At first they lived in Central Anatolia, building settlements over the ashes of Hittite cities like Hattusas, Alacahöyük, Pazarli and Alisar. At the beginning of the 8th century BC they set up their capital at Gordion.

We are familiar with King Midas from his epic, and from the discovery of his burial chamber. Midas, who succeeded to the throne in 738 BC, defended the frontiers of Phrygia quite well, but could not resist the attacks of the Cimmerians advancing from the Caucasian region. After his defeat by Cimmerians in 695 BC, it is said that he committed suicide by drinking bull's blood. Phrygians built the largest mound (tumulus) in Gordion known as the Tumulus of Midas; it is 53 meters high and 300 meters wide.

The large, almost square-shaped burial chamber is 6.20m by 5.15m. The skeleton of King Midas was laid on a large bench, surrounded by other benches full of gifts for the afterworld. Close observation of the skeleton revealed that King Midas died when he was around 60 years old and he was 1.59m tall. On the floor of the chamber were found 166 bronze funeral gifts and 145 bronze fibula laid at the head of the deceased. The lack of gold reveals that it was not a custom among the Phrygians to present funerary gifts of gold.

Influenced by Hittite art, Phrygian art, in turn, influenced Etruscan art in Italy. However, they were also directly influenced by the Urartu in Eastern Anatolia. For instance, they imported the Urartu figure of a bull's head and worked it on a cauldron of strictly Phrygian form. Metal ores were known and used in metalwork during the Early and Mid-Bronze Ages, from 2500 BC onwards. However, it was only around 1000 BC that Phrygian metalwork forms borrowed from pottery and metal vessels entered popular use. Phrygian art can be divided into three categories:

1- Local Phrygian ware

2- Urartu import ware

3- Assyrian import ware.

These groups are again divided into two major phases consisting of artifacts found in mounds dating before 695 BC.

The pottery of the Phrygian period was fine polychrome ware, which can be distinguished basically as early and late ware. Because of the Lydian domination of Anatolia during the late period, it bears western Anatolian influence after 695 BC.

As a contrast to the Hittite based motifs of the early period, in later ware we see studded patterns within lozenge shaped frames, and again studded motifs on animal forms. Complicated motifs took the place of very simple and geometric motifs from the old period. Instead of one color painted over another color, they started to be painted in many colors. Where animal shapes previously took on a schematic look to them, pieces from the late period showed evolvement. In addition, the late period witnessed motifs of meander, dots and plaited hair. Filtered vessels that had little application in daily life were seen to be popular as a funerary gift. Today Phrygian works of art are on exhibit at the Anatolian Civilizations Museum in Ankara.

Apart from their capital Gordion were you can visit the Tumulus of King Midas and nearby small museum, Pessinus was also a major Phrygian settlement. Examples of megaron planned, semerdam roofed houses were carved into the rock tombs. These may be seen around Afyon Arslantas and Eskisehir Yazilikaya.

The Arslantas rock monument near Afyon and the ruins of Midas near Eskisehir are among the most important Phrygian monuments in Anatolia, and are where the Phrygians worshipped their major deity Cybele and her lover Attis.

The Phrygian language belonged to the Indo-European group of languages.

The URARTU CIVILIZATION



After the fall of the Hittite empire, at the beginning of the first millennium B.C., a new kingdom was formed in eastern Anatolia, which was to survive for three hundred years. This was the kingdom of the Urartu, who were related to the Hurrians and were closely related to the Hittites in origin. However, the Urartu are historically looked upon as a civilization that had its own particular set of characteristics. The Urartu carried many of the customs and traditions of the Hittites into the first millennium, and can be said to have been a typically Anatolian culture. During the Early Urartu period, they were grouped in a series of emirates known as the Nairi, but in 900 B.C., they formed a confederation under a central monarch.

We know from inscriptions that the first Urartu ruler was Aramu (860-840 B.C.), followed by Sardur I (840-830 B.C.). Sardur I was responsible for adding a tower to the fortress of Van, which was completed during his reign. The inscription refers to him as the ruler of the Nairi, suggesting that the other emirates had rallied around him by this time. During the reigns of Sardur I and his successor Ishpuinis, (830-810 B.C.) the capital of Urartu was Van, which became steadily larger and more prosperous. Ishpuinis appointed his son Menuas as co-administrator during his reign and extended the Urartu frontiers, taking the city of Mushashir near Gevas. This made the Urartu a significant threat to the Assyrians. King Ishpuinis died in 810 B.C. and was succeeded by his son Menuas (810-780 B.C.). He was followed by Argishtish I (780-760 B.C.). The latter extended the Urartu frontiers even further and built up a chain of fortresses against potential foes. After the death of Argishtish I, Sardur II came to the throne (760-730 B.C.), and it was during his reign that the Urartu state reached its greatest proportions. Upon his death, he was succeeded by Rusas I (730-713 B.C.), during whose reign the Urartu were confronted with fierce opposition from the Assyrians. The frontiers of Urartu were threatened on several occasions, and to combat this, the Urartu built buffer towns on the edges of their territory that were abandoned in times of danger, and later inhabited.

Rusas I was succeeded by his son Argishtish II (713-685 B.C.) after whom Rusas II (685-645 B.C.), Sardur III (645-625 B.C.), Erimena (625-605 B.C.), and Rusas III (605-590 B.C.) reigned in turn. He was followed by Sardur IV, who reigned between 590-585 B.C. The Urartu were weakened by the constant raids of the Assyrians, Medes and Scythians. In the end, the state of Urartu was annihilated in 585 B.C. by the Scythian invasion. The Urartu, a tribe of powerful warriors in times of war, were farmers in times of peace. They were ruled by monarchs who also bore the title of chief-priest or envoy of Haldi, the major deity. Other deities in the Urartu pantheon included Teisiba, god of the heavens, who was known as Teshub among the Hittites and the Hurrians, and Siwini, the sun goddess. Many temples dedicated to Haldi, some of which were adjoining royal palaces, while others were free-standing structures, have been unearthed in excavations at Altintepe, Toprakkale, Patnos and Cavustepe. Urartu excavations have revealed not only palaces and temples of the Haldiye period, but also houses of the period, complete with windows and balconies. The interiors of these houses were decorated with various motifs. However far away the water source may have been, each settlement had a complete water supply and drainage system. One feature of Urartu architecture that was to be very influential in the Near East was the blind arch, and we can see that the layout of Urartu buildings was the precursor to that of the Iranian apadana layouts. Urartu fortresses, solid structures of dressed stone blocks were thought to have numbered thirty in all. The most important of these were the fortresses at Van, Anzaf, Cavustepe and Baskale. The art of metalwork was certainly highly advanced in Urartu, and perhaps the greatest proof of this was the fact that Urartu artifacts were exported to Phrygia and Etruria. This is how the magnificent bull-headed cauldrons of the Urartu came to be found in Italy

THE LYCIANS





Ancient Lycia encompasses the sea-girt bulge that runs from Ekincik and ancient Caunos around as far as Antalya, a semi-circle of some of the most mountainous and wild landscape to be encountered anywhere in Turkey. During the Ottoman period it was called 'Uc', the 'Frontier', a name that conjures up the nature of the landscape. It is a region hemmed in by mountains. On the west and east two high mountain ridges, the tallest peaks standing well over 3000 meters (10,000 feet) high, cut off Lycia from neighboring Caria to the west and Pamphylia to the east. In the north a lower but no less rugged range and a great plateau cut Lycia off from central Anatolia. Around the coast a series of mountain ranges drop precipitously into the sea and though the peaks are not as high as those in the interior, the aspect from seaward is of an inhospitable coast. Right into early summer the highest peaks in Lycia, Akdag in the west and Bey Dagi (ancient Mt Solymnus) in the east, are covered in snow on the highest slopes.

As the landscape is wild, so were the men who lived here. The Lycians enjoyed a reputation for independence and fought for it tooth and nail, often to the last man. This last statement is not a cliché tacked on for effect, on at least two occasions we know it to be fact. In 546 BC the Persians defeated Croesus, the last Lydian king, and advanced upon Lycia. On the Plain of Xanthos the Lycians met the much superior forces of the Persians, to no avail. Herodotus tells us of the tragic finale to the battle:

"When Harpagus advanced into the plain of Xanthos, they met him in battle, though greatly outnumbered, and fought with much gallantry; at length, however, they were defeated and forced to retire within their walls, whereupon they collected their women, children, slaves, and other property and shut them up in the citadel, set fire to it and burnt it to the ground. Then having sworn to do or die, they marched out to meet the enemy and were killed to a man."

Five hundred years later in 42 BC it all happened again when Brutus besieged Xanthos. Against a superior force the Lycians fought to the finish, and when they saw there was no hope of victory, they once again slew their women and children and burnt the city down. Plutarch recorded Brutus' feelings on this second mass suicide:

"It was so tragically a sight that Brutus could not bear to see it, but wept at the very mention of the scene. Thus the Xanthians, after a long space of years, repeated by their desperate deed the calamity of their forefathers, who after the very same manner in the Persian Wars had fired their city and destroyed themselves."

Such was the feeling of the Lycians towards independence that they were the last region to be incorporated into the Roman provinces in Asia Minor.

Who were these Lycians and where did they come from? They are mentioned in Homer's Iliad where they fought on the side of the Trojans in defense of Troy, a gallant force from "distant Lycia and the eddying Xanthos". Herodotus fills us in on the details. The Lycians, he says, came from Crete after "Sarpedon and Minos, fought for the throne, and the victorious Minos expelled Sarpedon and his party". They were then called the Termilae, and only adopted the name Lycian when the noble Lycus, son of King Pandion was expelled from Athens and came to join Sarpedon. From Lycus they adopted the name Lycian. It's all a bit tortuous and not as interesting as the light Hittite and Egyptian references throw on the origins of the Lycians. The Hittites record that a maritime people called the Lukka lived here sometime in the 14th century BC. Egyptian records mention a people called the Lukki living here, a people feared as sea-raiders. This latter reference makes a good deal of sense on later evidence.

The Lycian coast has often been referred to as the 'pirate coast', and with it's many strategically sited coves and islands where these sea-raiders could lie in wait for plump merchant ships tramping up and down the coast, it deserves the epithet. Numerous campaigns were mounted to clean up the coast from as early as 1194 BC right up until the 19th century. A relief at Medinet Habu in the Nile delta records how Ramses III put together a great fleet to take on the Lukka and decisively defeated them, leaving the coast free of piracy for a while. When Xerxes assembled his huge force for the invasion of Greece in 480 BC the Lycians contributed fifty ships and Herodotus gives us this tantalizing description of the piratical bunch that manned them:

"They wore greaves and corsets; they carried bows of cornel wood, cane arrows without feathers, and javelins. They had goatskin slung round their shoulders, and hats stuck round with feathers. They also carried daggers and rip-hooks."

Piracy is again mentioned in the 5th century BC, but it is not until the Roman occupation of Asia Minor that attempts were again made to bring it under control. In 78 BC a campaign was mounted by Servilius Vatia, governor of Cilicia, and though he had moderate success, it did little to check it. In 67 BC Pompey, an able and intelligent admiral, was given wide-ranging powers and almost unlimited resources to tackle the piracy problem, which he did with total success. However Pompey was reluctant to give up his power and his ships and became himself something of a thorn in the Senate's side. After the fall of Rome the Lycian coast once again became a haven for pirate fleets and not until the 18th and 19th centuries and the presence of the British Navy was the piracy problem again tackled and the Lycian coast cleaned up.

In this remote region the sites of over forty cities have been found and much remains to identify the culture of the Lycians. The most obvious features of the Lycian landscape are the tombs and sarcophagi left behind. They are everywhere and it is difficult not to think of the region as a vast necropolis peopled with the shadowy figures of Lycian nobles and warriors. Ancestor-worship was evidently important to the Lycians and the tombs are extravagant affairs, the more grandiose decorated with a frieze and inscriptions placing a curse upon anyone tampering with the tomb. Five distinct types of tomb can be distinguished: pillar-tombs, temple-tombs, house-tombs, pigeon-hole tombs, and the ubiquitous sarcophagi. Pillar-tombs are specific to Lycia and consist of a long tapering pillar set on a stone base with the grave chamber at the top. These were for important dynasts and the best examples are at Xanthos. Temple-tombs are maybe the most impressive of the Lycian tombs and consist of a temple facade with a grave chamber behind it. Those at Caunos are the most romantically sited while those at Fethiye the most accessible. House-tombs were modeled on the wooden houses of the Lycians and so give us some idea of what everyday accommodation was like several thousand years ago. They are smaller than the temple-tombs, though often several stories high, and the stone has been hewn to imitate wooden roof beams and the doorway and portico. The house-tombs were sometimes decorated with relieves and painted as at Myra where fragments of a painted relief have miraculously survived. Pigeon-hole tombs were the down-market version of temple and house tombs, small unadorned chambers cut into a cliff-face. The best examples are at Pinara where the cliffs are literally pock-marked by these tombs. Sarcophagi are found everywhere: scattered over hill-sides, on the summits of hills, by the shore, and in the sea where the land has subsided. The older sarcophagi are the largest with massive stone bases, grave chambers, and heavy lids often with a peaked 'gothic' look to them. In Roman times the sarcophagi became smaller and less ornate, perhaps as the importance of ancestor-worship declined.

With the decline of the Roman Empire, so too Lycian fortunes declined. In Byzantine times there were small settlements around the coast, a number of Byzantine churches will be seen in isolated spots, but the interior was not heavily populated as in Lycian times. In the late Middle Ages this region was viewed as a wilderness, the region of "Uc", the "Frontier" of the Ottomans, and the coast was the haunt of pirates who had semi-permanent settlements ashore.

The Lycians and Lycian culture faded into vague folk-memories of a proud and independent people who had built great stone cities and buried their dead in magnificent tombs. Not until those intrepid travelers of the 19th century, Francis Beaufort, Charles Newton, Thomas Spratt and Edward Forbes, was the existence and extent of Lycian culture to be brought to the notice of the west.

Lycian Alpahabet



Important Cities
Xanthos,Kekova-Simena,Tlos,Myra,Pinara,Arycanda,Patara,Letoon
Lycia’s History - A Struggle For Freedom

The history of Lycia is a story of fierce struggles against those who sought to invade and dominate it, as it was a very desireable region. It appears that Greek efforts to colonize Lycia during the first millennium B.C. were largely unsuccessful even though there were several Athenian expeditions, including the famous one under Melesander in 430 BC. The Greeks were able to establish only one important colony in Lycia, Phaselis.

The first recorded instance of Lycian resistance fighting occurred around 540 BC when the Persians overran all Asia Minor. The Persians attacked the Lycian capital city of Xanthos and the Xanthosians put up a heroic fight. In the end however, they chose mass suicide over surrender. The men of Xanthos gathered their wives, children and possessions in the acropolis and set fire to all before rushing out fighting to die to the last man. Herodotus of Halicarnassos reports:

"The Persian Army entered the plain of Xanthos under the command of Harpagos, and did battle with the Xanthians. The Xanthians fought with small numbers against the superior Persians forces, with legendary bravery. They resisted the endless Persian forces with great courage, but were finally beaten, their womenfolk, children, slaves and treasures into the fortress. This was then set on fire from, below and around the walls , until destroyed by conflagration. Then the warriors of Xanthos made their final attack on the Persians, their voices raised in calls of war, until every last man from Xanthos was killed."

This disaster was confirmed during excavations by a thick layer of ash covering the site.

Xanthos was later repopulated by about 80 families outside the city at the time of the mass suicide as well as other Lycian immigrants to the city. Persian rule of Lycia actually proved to be quite mild, requiring only tribute, and the country was left to be ruled by its own dynasts. The state of calm that came over Lycia fostered economic growth and the strength of the region. It was during this period that the first monumental rock-cut tombs were carved and the Lycian alphabet came into wide-spread use.

In 480 BC the Lycians contributed fifty ships to the Persian King Xerxes' invasion of Greece. Heredotus gives us this description of the motley Lycian crew:

"The wore greaves and corslets; they carried bows of cornel wood, cane arrows without feathers, and javelins. They had goatskin slung round their shoulders, and hats stuck round with feathers. They also carried daggers and rip-hooks."

The Athenians had little success at capturing Lycia in the next century despite several attempts, only managing to set up one important colony, Phaselis. However, in 333 BC, the Macedonian king Alexander the Great received a friendly reception from the Lycians following his defeat of the Persians - he was welcomed as a deliverer of the Lycians from the threat of attack by their neighbor - the Carian dynasts of Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum), as the Persians were forcing the Lycians to submit Carian rule. Following the death of Alexander this general Ptolemy, who declared himself king of Egypt, took over Lycia. It was during this Ptolemaic rule which lasted over a hundred years, that Lycia began to lose a bit of its native character. Greek was adopted as the nation’s language and the Greek influence was also felt in art and culture. For example, the popularization of sarcophagus-tombs to replace the earlier rock-tombs. The rule of the Lycian dynasts ended with Pericles, as cities adopted Greek consitutions. It was also during this time that the democratic Lycian Union was formed. It eventually consisted of 23 cities.

The strong unity of the Lycian Union became very important in resisting foreign invaders. In 197 BC Lycia was taken from the Ptolemies by Antiochus III, king of Syria. Phaselis, Limyra, Andriace, Patara and Xanthos are specifically mentioned as having been captured by him. Shortly afterwards he was defeated by the Romans at the battle of Magnesia. Lycia was then handed over to Rhodes by Rome (with the exception of Telmessos), to which Rhodes had allied itself during the battle. The Lycians were very resentful of this and spent the next two decades fiercely fighting the Rhodesians and petitioning the Roman Senate. Finally in 167 BC, by a decision of the Senate, the Lycians’ independence was recognized and the Lycian Federation could function fully. The one permanent result of Rhodian rule in Lycia was that Phaselis, a Rhodian colony, was henceforth included in Lycia.

Some time in the second century, probably near the beginning, two men, Lysanias and Eudemus, seized control of Xanthos and carried out executions in their attempt to set up tyranny. A campaign of the Lycian Federation's forces supressed them and restored order. However, shortly after this, Eudemus made a second attempt at Tlos and once again the Federation's forces were called out. From this it is evident that the the Lycian Union was strong and ready to act in defense of freedom.

The formation of the Roman povince of Asia in 167 BC left Lycia untouched. In 88 BC the Pontic king Mithridates VI attacked and overran western Asia Minor and most places welcomed him as a liberator due to unsatisfactory Roman administration. Lycia, however, was among the few who resisted. Mithridates sent his officers to subdue Lycia but it was not effectively occupied and in 84 BC the king was defeated by the Romans. Rome reaffirmed Lycia's independence and showed its gratitude of Lycia's loyalty by enlarging the Lycian territory with the addition of the three cities of Bubon, Balbura and Oenoanda.

The second half of the first century BC was a time in which Lycia was affected by the internal conflicts and disturbances in Rome, sometimes suffering disaster as a result. In 42 BC Brutus attempted to take control of Xanthos during the Roman Civil Wars. Once again, as 500 years previously, the Xanthosians chose mass suicide over domination. Later Roman armies took control of Lycia by beating Brutus and then repaired the destroyed city. Antoninius, who defeated Brutus, took over Rome's eastern territories and allowed the Lycians their freedom. Thus, Lycia remained the only part of Asia Minor not to be incorporated into Rome's sphere of power.

Lycia then recovered under the reign of Augustus which began in 27 BC. During the first and second centuries BC, the emperors Vespasian, Traianus and Hadrian visited Lycia for various reasons. The emperor Vespasian treated the town with respect and built some monuments for it (69-79 A.D.) In 43 A.D. Claudius reduced Lycia to the status of a Roman province, and it was then administered by a governer whom the emperor appointed

Lycia naturally underwent a process of romanization of its culture, art and daily life during this time. Lycian aristocrats began to adopt Roman names, there was a demand for wild animal fights and gladiator combat and the emperor cult spread rapidly. Lycia prospered under imperial rule. Most of the sumptuous monuments and public works in Lycian cities dates from the Roman period, specifically from the the 2nd century A.D. As trade expanded people became wealthier and many Lycian millionaires gave generously to their country. For example, Opramoas of Rhodiapolis personally financed almost 60 major monuments in all Lycian cities including the theatres of Xanthos, Tlos, and Limyra. The power of the Lycian Union was reduced a bit under the Romans in matters of civic affairs and justice, but the Union did survive.

Following two very large earthquakes in 141 AD and 240 AD some cities were unable to recover and Lycia began to decline. However, a distinct Lycian nationhood seems to have survived well after the arrival of Christianity in the 4th century AD. The spread of Christianity brought important social and cultural changes to Lycia. The most important figure of this time was St. Nicholas (later known as Santa Claus), Bishop of the Lycian city of Myra. Many ancient Lycian cities became Byzantine settlements of importance. What is interesting is that while carefully constructed monumental churches were built in Lycia's mountainous areas in settlements so small that the names are unknown, buildings on the coast - even large churches - are known for their careless construction, often of rubble masonry. Xanthos became the seat of an arch bishopric in the 8th century, but was deserted during the first wave of Arab raids. These raids eventually finished off Lycia and the country lay almost uninhabited for nearly a thousand years until the Turks, led by the lords of the Teke Dynasty, settled the area in the 13th century. This area was known as the "Uc" (frontier) - wilderness - and the Turks mainly kept to the high plateau and left the coast to pirates where they had semi-permanent settlements. At the turn of the 19th century the Ottoman government began repopulating the coast with Greeks from the Aegean islands in order to balance the power of the local feudal lords. Many coastal towns like Kalkan (then called Kalamaki) and the neighboring town of Kas (Andifli) came into existence at this time. However, the Anatolian Greeks were obliged to leave after the war of 1919-1922 with the exchange of populations.

The Lycian Coast and the Scourge of Piracy

Pirates were the scourge of the ancient Mediterranean and the Lycian coast justly gained the reputation as the "Pirate Coast". This coast is dotted with many strategically placed coves and islands where the sea-raiders would hide themselves and pounce upon the many heavily-laden merchant ships sailing by. Numerous efforts were continually necessary to clean up the coast from as early as 1194 BC and as late as the 19th century. The Lycian city of Phaselis especially suffered from pirates. During its brief independence from Lycia (c. 100 BC) it was overrun by Cilician pirates and became their base for a time, until they were driven out by the Roman general Servilius Vatia in 78 BC. The city had quickly became smaller with a diminished population. Piracy was one of the reasons why there were few Lycian coastal cities.

Records regarding piracy show:

Ramses III of Egypt put together a great fleet to take on the Lukki (Egyptian name for the Lycian area). He was successful and the coast was free of pirates for a while.

Piracy was again mentioned in the 5th century BC, but not until the Roman occupation of Asia Minor were any efforts made to bring it under control. Early attempts were somewhat effectual, but it was not until 67 BC that Admiral Pompey, given huge powers and almost unlimited resources, was able to check the piracy problem with great success.

After the fall of Rome the Lycian coast once more became heavily saturated with pirate fleets. It was not until the presence of the British Navy in the 18th and 19th centuries that the Lycian coast was finally cleaned up.

HATTI CIVILIZATION (2500-2000 B.C.)

The people known as Hattis are amongst the oldest settlers in Anatolian history. They ruled central Anatolia for about 500 years. Small city kingdoms were their favorite type of settlement units. They spoke a totally different language than the other influential Anatolian civilizations. There are signs of Mesopotamian influence on Hatti art and culture.

The main cities Mahmatlar, Horoztepe, Alacahoyuk and Hattus are inside the Kizilirmak (Red River, a large river in central Anatolia) bend.

They believed in a number of gods representing various acts of nature in the form of animals. Some statues of their most popular gods are on exhibition in some major museums of Turkey.


HATTI AND HITTITE PRINCIPALITIES PERIOD ( 2000 - 1750 B.C.)
By the end of the 3rd millenium B.C. a large scale migration took place mainly from North Europe to the mild weathered south. One of the strong elements of the Indo-European people, Hittites gravitated to Anatolia through Caucasia while Hatti principalities were ruling the land.

These newcomers did not invade the land suddenly. They settled along side the existing people and set their own settlement units in time. Only after a long time, as a lot of Hittite principalities emerged, they claimed the rule of the land, Anatolia. They never destroyed the existing people and their cities. But instead, they mixed with the Hattis and other people of Anatolia. They even shared their gods, goddesses, art, culture and a large amount of words from Hatti language.

By 1750 B.C. Hittites were the only rulers of Anatolia.

Bithynia

The ancient province of Bithynia in north-western Anatolia centered on the fertile plain bordered by the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus in the west and the Black Sea in the north and, inland, stretched as far as the mountain passes east of Bolu and, to the south, down to the Uludag mountains in Bursa south of the Gulf of Izmit and the Köroglu Daglari hills. Geologically speaking parts of its north-western edge still belong to Thrace, while to the east and south chalk and palaeozoic slate and limestone come together to form hills and mountains, peaking in the Uludag, the classical Bithnyian Olympus (2500m/ 8205ft). Verdant forests of beech, pine, fir, oak and rhododendron grow on Bithnyia's well-watered Black Sea slopes and farming benefits from the sunshine higher up. More intensive farming in some parts is carried out by such settlers such as the Muhacir who were driven out of the Balkans, Caucasus, Crimea, etc. when the Ottoman Empire was stripped of these provinces in the late 19th c. One of Turkey's most densely settled areas, the Bithnyian plain nowadays carries the main routes from Istanbul to Ankara and also forms part of the industrial sector of the north- west, much of it concentrated around Izmit, Adapazari and Bursa.

At the crossroads of Europe and Asia Minor, the territory of ancient Bithynia was constantly being fought over. Settled originally by the Thracians, around 550 BC. it was taken by the Lydians then later by the Persians. Since the wooded mountains of the north remained outside the dominion of Alexander the Great and his successors, Bithynia under the Seleucids was able to develop more or less independently and by the 2nd c. BC, had become a kingdom in its own right, flourishing around its ancient capitals of Nikomedeia (Izmit) and Nicaea (lznik). In 74 BC. it was made a Roman province. The Greek colony founded on the Bosphorus around 675 BC., where the Istanbul suburb of Kadikoy stands today, became the Romans' capital and in the Byzantine era, when it was the seat of the archbishopric, provided the venue for the fourth ecumenical council in 451. In the 11th c Bithynia was ruled by the Seljuks. Since the 14th c. it has been Ottoman, and, in Bursa, it also supplied the Ottomans' first capital.

Galatia

Ancient Galatia, at the centre of Asia Minor with its capital Ancyra (Ankara), was part of Phrygia and Cappadocia in early antiquity. The first Galatians crossed the straits from Europe into Anatolia in 278 BC. These Gallic tribes of eastern Celts had been forced back to the Danube by Alexander the Great and Lysimachus and descended on Macedonia in 279 only to be soundly beaten at the Dardanelles. King Nicomedes of Bithynia brought them in as mercenaries the following year to provide support in his power struggle with the Seleucid Antiochos I, and the arrival of these Celtic hordes made serious inroads into the flourishing civilizations of Asia Minor. The local rulers, summoning up their own forces, succeeded in containing the "barbarians" in the area between Pergamum, Bithynia, Pontus and Cappadocia, and Antiochos I defeated them in the famous Ankara "Battle of Elephants".

Employed as mercenaries by the Hellenistic kings they renewed their pillaging raids on Anatolia's cities until Attalos I, King of Pergamum (241-197 BC.), defeated them in two battles between 235 and 225 BC (Altar of Zeus in Pergamum) and forced them to settle. For over a thousand years the Galatians lived around the Phrygian city of Ancyra, hence the name of the region. M. Vulso was finally responsible for the collective defeat of their tribes in 189 BC, and it was around AD 55 that the Apostle Paul wrote his famous Epistle to the Galatians concerning the independence of his Gospel and the freedom from Jewish law of any Galatians he converted to Christianity.

Cilicia

The ancient kingdom of Cilicia in Asia Minor was the area known to the Assyrians as Khilakku in the west and Kue in the east. The western half, Cificia Tracheia ("rough Cilicia"), is the rugged and still largely inaccessible and undeveloped section of the Taurus stretching inland from Anamur, while to the east is the fertile Cilician plain of Cukurova, with its fields of grain and cotton and its banana and citrus groves. This division of what is now a flourishing agricultural region, with a well developed industrial base, still persists today, when Cilicia roughly falls into two Turkish provinces, Icel, with its capital at Mersin, and Adana, the area around the industrial city of the same name at the heart of the Cilician plain. Cilicia was never a kingdom in its own right for very long. It was too much of a buffer state, too often a prey to the power struggles of neighboring kingdoms. There is no doubting the fact, however, that this was among the regions that served as the cradle of ancient civilizations from the earliest times. On the Cukurova plain alone, between Mersin and Toprakkale, there are 150 historic sites, some dating as far back as the Neolithic, Calcolithic and bronze ages, along with major ruins from the Hittites right up to Classical Greece and Rome. For thousands of years people have lived on these fertile alluvial plains in the Taurus foreland, the legacy of the "rivers of Paradise", as the Arabian geographers called the Seyhan and the Ceyhan.

Some of Cilicia was probably for a time part of the independent kingdoms of Arzawa and then Kizzuwadna (from about 1650 BC.), buffer states between the Hittites and the Mitanni. From 1196 BC it belonged for c.400 years to the late Hittite Kueli kingdom. After the established order in Anatolia was destroyed in the late 7th c BC by invading Scythian and Cimmerian "barbarians" from southern Russia, a kingdom of Cilicia south of the Taurus was one of the new political power structures which soon emerged as regions sought to establish their own identity. The Cilician kings who ruled in Tarsus as vassals of the Persians managed to retain a certain degree of independence and succeeded in expanding their territory as far as Cappadocia and Pamphylia.

Around 103 BC Cilicia came under the way of the Romans. However, it was not until 66 BC, when Pompei rooted out and destroyed the ferocious pirates from their lairs in the west, that Tarsus was made the capital of the Roman province of Cilicia. This ushered in a long period of prosperity, ended only in the 7th c AD by the Arabs sweeping up from the south. The Armenian kingdom of Cilicia (until 1375, Little Armenia) started to develop in the late 11th c. with support from the Crusaders after 1199, and Armenians were in fact to continue living in the Taurus mountains north-east of Adana and in Kahramanmaras (Maras) around Hacin until their deportation earlier this century.

Between 1352 and 1378 the Ramazanoglu nomads succeeded in winning for themselves a princedom from the Turcoman tribes who had been gradually moving in since 1185 from the north-east, and this was to survive for about 250 years despite its absorption into the Ottoman Empire in 1517.

With time, and against a background of growing political uncertainty (uprising at Celali and Saruca/ Sebkan), the demands of these wandering herdsmen led to the flat parts of Cilicia near the coast being turned over the winter pastures, where fewer and fewer people settled, and it was only when the nomadic way of life had to be abandoned in the late 19th c. that farming returned to the coastal plain again.

Pamphylia

The rich plain of Pamphylia, curving around the top of the Gulf of Antalya between Antalya (Adalia, Attaleia) in the westand Alanya (classical Coracesium, the "crow's nest", famous for its pirates) in the east, against the impressive backdrop of the Bey Daglari (over 2000m/6564ft) in the west and the Central Taurus in the north, nestles almost like a piece of North Africa between its mountains and the Mediterranean. The white chalk faces of the low foothills of the mountain country of Pisidia in the north are covered with pines and marquis, their lower slopes dotted with the ruins of ancient castles and classical cities and the many villages crowding the well-watered valley floors. The Pamphylian plain itself is rich alluvial farmland, given over to the intensive cultivation of vegetables, cotton, citrus fruits, and bananas. Towards Lycia in the west, however, the subsoil is of limestone tufa, and here the cultivated travertine terraces start right at the foot of the mountains, falling steeply to the sea and the ancient harbor of Antalya.

In classical times Pamphylia's most important cities were Adalia, Alanya, Perge, Aspendos and Side. The main period of settlement is thought to have been when Greek refugees mingled with the local peoples having fled here following the fall of Troy around 1184 BC. The name Pamphylia is ancient Greek for "land of all tribes" and an indication of just how colorful a mixture this must have been. Ruled in turn by the Lydians, Persians, Alexander the Great, Antigonos I, one of his successors, the Seleucids and Egypt's Ptolimites, it enjoyed a brief period of independence until the west of the region was ceded to the King of Pergamum in 188 BC. The Romans made it the heart of the military province of Cilicia, then merged it with Lycia in the 1st c. AD to form a single province which reached the height of its prosperity in the 2nd c. AD. Earlier this part of the coast had also been notorious for its pirates who were to plague the Romans until their reign of terror was ended by Pompey. He also took the local cult of Mithraism back with him to Rome, and for a long time Mithras was the official protector of the Roman Empire and the great rival of the Christian religion. This local attachment to Mithraism made it particularly difficult for the early Christians to gain general acceptance of their new religion. As a consequence the Crusaders set up numerous small Christian enclaves, each with its castle, along the coast of Pamphylia and Cilicia. The Italians seized on this fact, as "heirs to the Roman Empire" and representatives of the Church of Rome to lay claim to these coasts in the Turkish War of Liberation earlier this century

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Seljuk Empire





In the 11th century, a Turcoman tribe called the Seljuks set up a state in Iran, with Isfahan as their capital. The Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad was so taken in by their military prowess, that he sanctioned their leader, Tugrul Bey, with the title "King of the East and West" thus designating the Seljuk warlord as his temporal deputy.

But the Seljuks under Tugrul and his successor, Alp Arslan, were not content with controlling only their piece of the disintegrating Arab empire: recent converts to Islam, they saw themselves as the rightful heirs to the lands conquered during and immediately after the time of the Prophet Muhammed, in particular, the heretical lands of the Levant and Egypt. Indeed, in order to secure their own flanks, Isfahan entered into numerous negotiations with the Byzantine emperors of Constantinople (Istanbul).

But however sedentary and acculturated the Seljuk chieftains had become, the situation on the borderlands between the Seljuks and the Byzantines was anything but peaceful. Turcoman gazis (warriors for the faith, and generally a very motley crew) and Byzantine akritoi (mercenaries) were enrolled as private troops for various Armenian - Byzantine landowners but engaged in private looting themselves. The Seljuks and Byzantines constantly accused each other of bad faith and for breaching the general peace. It was not until the third quarter of the 11th century , when the situation reached a critical point that the Byzantines, under Emperor (or Basileus) Romanus IV Diogenes, decided to preempt the nascent Seljuk power on their eastern frontier and re-conquer Armenia.

Using ancient Harput (modern Elazig) as his base, Diogenes crossed the Euphrates (the classic demarcation of east and west) to confront the Seljuk army on the field of Manzikert (Malazgirt), north of Lake Van in 1071. Although they vastly outnumbered the irregular Turkish horsemen, the Byzantine Christian troops could scarcely have selected a worse venue: the light-riding Turks feigned a retreat, lured the main Byzantine force into a loop, and showered the heat-exhausted Christian host with arrows before closing on three sides with the scimitar. The booty for the victors on "that dreadful day" included the vanquished Diogenes himself.

Remarkably, the Seljuks did not drag the beaten Diogenes back home in victory, but released him for a ransom and cession of Byzantine land, and reentered a period of often uneasy peace with Constantinople (Istanbul) again. Indeed, the two forces actually stood together against the Mongol invasion of the 13th century. But it was a vain defense as neither Christian nor Muslim were spared the sword as the Mongol hordes rolled across the steppe into Anatolia.

The reigns of AlpArslan and his son, Malik Shah, were the most glorious years of the great Seljuks of Isfahan; the death of the latter marked the decline of the great Seljuks and by 1192 the dynasty ended in the same obscurity with which it had begun, unable to cope with the pressures from the Crusaders, the caliph and new Turcoman clans arriving from the east due to the increasing power of the Mongols, who were soon to erupt from the deepest recesses of Central Asia to sack much of the known world before returning just as quickly to the frontiers of China.

Following the decline of the great Seljuks and the onslaught of the Mongols, lesser Seljuk clans established their own principalities throughout Anatolia and made the small Christian states in the area their vassals. Through inter-marriage, they greatly facilitated the cultural syncretism of the area. The presence of so many petty Muslim states in east and central Anatolia explain the abundance of Seljuk architecture in modern Turkey, with some of the best examples of this so-called "poetry in stone" to be seen in Erzurum, Divrigi, Sivas and Konya. Of these, Konya is perhaps the most impressive. It was where the Sufi mystic, Celaleddin Rumi, (Mevlana or "our master") graced the court of Alaaddin Keykubat I, the Sultan of Rum and initiated the peculiar whirling dervish ceremony in an effort to seek spiritual union with the Creator himself. The cultural effervescence at Konya, however, met with the same abrupt and unhappy end as the others at the hands of the indiscriminate Mongol hordes of the descendants of Cengiz Khan.

Just as they had dealt the Byzantines a decisive blow at Manzikert (Malazgirt) two centuries before, the now settled Seljuks could not resist the most recent wave of nomads from the steppe. On June 26, 1243, despite Byzantine auxiliaries sent by the Seljuk Sultan's "ally" in Constantinople (Istanbul), the once mighty Seljuk army was utterly routed at Köse Dagi outside the quintessentially Seljuk city of Sivas. The remaining Turkish clans scattered westwards before being further defeated by the Mongols, until they had no choice but to finally accept their role as mere vassals in the greater scheme of things. But no sooner had the Mongol tide surged over the region than it withdrew once more, leaving behind several unimportant mini-states led by petty chieftains who might well have remained utterly obscure but for one of their number on the fringe of the Byzantine state: Osman, the son of Ertugrul, the horseman destined to found an empire that stretched from Morocco in the west to Iran in the east, and from the Yemen in the south to the Crimea in the north. This new empire was called as Ottomans

Ottoman Empire



Starting as a small warrior band raiding the Byzantine frontier, the Ottoman Turks built an empire from Morocco to Iran, from the deserts of Iraq and Arabia to the gates of Vienna.

As the power of the Seljuk Turkish Sultanate of Rum weakened in the late 1200s, warrior chieftains claimed the lands of northwestern Anatolia bordering on the Byzantine Empire.

Ertugrul Gazi (EHR-too-rool gah-zee) ruled the lands around Sögüt, a town between Bursa and Eskisehir. Upon his death in 1281 his son Osman, from whom the empire took its name, expanded the territory to 16,000 square kilometers. Osman's son Orhan conquered Iznik (Nicaea) and took his armies across the Dardanelles and into Thrace and Europe by 1362.

By 1452 the Ottomans controlled almost all of the former Byzantine lands except the great "Second Rome" of Constantinople. In 1453 Mehmet the Conqueror took the city and made it his capital, extinguishing the 1100-year-old Byzantine Empire forever.

The reign of Süleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566) was the Ottoman golden age. The brilliance of the sultan's court and the might of his armies outshone those of England's Henry VIII, France's François I, and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. But after Süleyman, it was all downhill as a succession of more or less incompetent sultans depended upon their Grand Vezirs (prime ministers) to run the empire.

The Ottoman sultanate lasted for over 600 years, but its last three centuries were marked by stagnation and decline. By the 1800s the Ottomans had fallen far behind the rest of Europe in science, technology, industry, education, commerce and military might.

Reformist sultans such as Selim III (1789-1807) and Mahmut II (1808-1839) succeeded in pushing Ottoman bureaucracy, society and culture ahead, but not in curing all the empire's ills. By the late 1800s, the Turkish Empire was the "Sick Man of Europe," with the Great Powers of Europe waiting by its bedside to seize his rich lands.

Impetuous military graduates--the Young Turks--grabbed power from the autocratic Sultan Abdülhamid II in 1908 and declared a constitutional government, but they soon became an ineffective oligarchy. When Enver Pasha, the Young Turk strong man, allied the empire with Germany in World War I, its fate was sealed. The Ottomans were defeated in World War I. The empire was abolished in 1923 by Kemal Atatürk and replaced with the modern Turkish Republic.

[Istanbullu]

ICY!!!

Thank you man!!!! This is one of the best threads of our forum if not the best!

[Kuvvaci]

ICY, INCREDIBLE THREAD Thank you for your effort... This thread shows the giant history of Turkey and roots of our civilization. Actually these states and empires are just the dominant factors. There are also immigrations of other nations and a mix during the 5000 years. Each civilization left something for us.

[chicagogeorge]

Excellent!
I love the historical maps. Asia Minor is rich in history!
BTW, Catal Huyuk is the site of the world's second oldest urban community (after Jericho) dating back to 7500b.c.!

[Ellatur]

nice thread!

[george_ts]

edit

[Uskudar1990]

Great research man!

It must have taken you a long time.

[icy]

Alacahoyuk/Yazilikaya(Hittite sites)

Rock sanctuary at Yazılıkaya. Sixty-three deities representing a reduced version of the "thousand gods" of the Hittite Empire.

The gods (1-42) are depicted on the west and the goddesses (43-63) on the east side of the gallery. The chief divinities are portrayed in the main scene on the north wall (40-46). As they appear in profile, they are generally described as being in a procession. However, it must be understood that, with the exception of the monument of Eflatunpınar, it was not customary in Hittite art to carve front views of figures. Therefore, we do not consider these deities to be marching in a procession nor advancing to meet one another. Rather, we believe that the artist meant his figures to be standing ceremonially in front of the beholder. The division into groups of male and female deities is not rigid. Three goddesses stand among the gods (36-38), and one god (44) is observed in the row of goddesses. The 42 gods represented start on the left of the entrance to the gallery with a relief consisting of 12 figures. (13-27) These gods are not clearly identified. 28 and 29 show two bull men standing on the hieroglyphic symbol for the earth and supporting the sky. 34) Representation of a deified king with the hieroglyphic signs of the Sun God of Heaven (see also personification of divine kingship). 35) Moon God. 36, 37) Ninatto and Kulitta, handmaids to Ishtar. 38) Shaushga, the Hurrian Ishtar. 39) Ea, Mesopotamian God of Water and an important deity in the Hurrion religion. 40) God of Grain, holding an ear of corn. 41) Weather God of Hattusa. 42) Weather God of Heaven (Weather God of Hati). 43) Hepatu. 44) Sharruma. 47) Hutena. 48) Hutellura. 49) Nabarbi. 56) A sculptured block representing Ishtar-Shaushga, found in Yekbaz, a neighboring village, now leaning against the wall below the row of goddesses. Very probably originally from the gap between 55 and 56.

Museum of Anatolian Civilizations



























Jewellery of Hittites












Urartu











Lydian









Phrygia

[GTAsa]

Excellent

Can this thread be made sticky so it won't get lost?

Lets keep it clean please

[Urban Girl]

Harika!
im proud of to live in this country. very rich history, very rich culture, beatiful lands!
Thanks for this thread

[Istanbullu]

Originally Posted by GTAsa

Can this thread be made sticky so it won't get lost?

Great idea!

This is a precious post really!

[Istanbullu]

btw everyone who are interested on the ancient civilisaitons of our country, I suggest you to read the books of Halikarnas Balıkçısı = Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı.

[toraman]

This thread is amazing. Thank you icy, Turkey has a huge civilisation and culture past...

[unals]

wow...nice thread and nice pictures... keep up the good work...!!!

Originally Posted by unals

wow...nice thread and nice pictures... keep up the good work...!!!

I sure agree. I came here after googling to get more info on what I saw
in my trip to beautiful Turkey a few months ago.

I'd like to use some jpgs of text describing figures I saw, at Ankara
Museum. Can I give credit to someone besides SkyscraperCity forums?

For those interested in my photo travelogue or photologue, I guess.
please feel free to visit at
http://www.pbase.com/andrys/turkey

And if you do visit and enjoy some of it or have a question, feel
free to leave a note at bottom left of galleries or photos. Thanks!

I was blown away by this country.

- Andrys
http://andrys.com

[Raza]

i think Iran should also be included in cradle of civilization

[Tekir]

Natives of Anatolia such as Hittites are Iranian people.

[turk]

^That is BS. Hittites are descendants of Abraham and his kin from around Egypt.

[icy]

please move it to history section

[System_Halted]

Ben mekan tanıtmayan bu tip tarihi başlıkları bilerek anasayfada bırakmıştım. :S