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94-485: Its site is located near Çayırbağ in Asiatic Turkey . [REDACTED]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Smith, William , ed. (1854–1857). "Ipsus". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography . London: John Murray. 38°51′22″N 30°32′57″E  /  38.856193°N 30.549206°E  / 38.856193; 30.549206 This article about

188-688: A genetic relationship to other language families (e.g., the Northeast Caucasian languages ), but none of these are generally accepted. The Hurrians adopted the Akkadian language and Cuneiform script for their own writing about 2000 BC. Texts in the Hurrian language in cuneiform have been found at Hattusa , Ugarit (Ras Shamra), as well as in one of the longest of the Amarna letters (EA 27), written by King Tushratta of Mitanni to Pharaoh Amenhotep III . It

282-809: A Greek victory in 449 BCE, and the Ionian cities regained their independence. By the Peace of Antalcidas (387 BCE), which ended the Corinthian War , Persia regained control over Ionia. In 334 BCE, the Macedonian Greek king Alexander the Great conquered the Anatolian peninsula from the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Alexander's conquest opened up the interior of Asia Minor to Greek settlement and influence. Following

376-462: A bitter series of civil wars followed by a combined attack by Medes , Persians , Scythians and their own Babylonian relations. The last Assyrian city to fall was Harran in southeast Anatolia. This city was the birthplace of the last king of Babylon , the Assyrian Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar . Much of the region then fell to the short-lived Iran-based Median Empire , with

470-642: A great impact on the religion of the Hittites. From the Hurrian cult centre at Kummanni in Kizzuwatna, Hurrian religion spread to the Hittite people. Syncretism merged the Old Hittite and Hurrian religions. Hurrian religion spread to Syria, where Baal became the counterpart of Teshub. The Hurrian religion, in different forms, influenced the entire ancient Near East , except ancient Egypt and southern Mesopotamia. While

564-613: A key to the understanding of Hurrian culture and history. The 2nd millennium Hurrians were masterful ceramists. Their pottery is commonly found in Mesopotamia and in the lands west of the Euphrates; it was highly valued in distant Egypt, by the time of the New Kingdom . Archaeologists use the terms Khabur ware and Nuzi ware for two types of wheel-made pottery used by the Hurrians. Khabur ware

658-521: A large population of Hurrians, and there is significant Hurrian influence in Hittite mythology . By the Early Iron Age , the Hurrians had been assimilated with other peoples. The state of Urartu later covered some of the same area. The Khabur River valley became the heart of the Hurrian lands for a millennium. The first known Hurrian kingdom emerged around the city of Urkesh (modern Tell Mozan) during

752-708: A letter from the king of Shubria to an Assyrian magnate from the time of Sargon II was composed in the Hurrian language. Knowledge of Hurrian culture relies on archaeological excavations at sites such as Nuzi and Alalakh as well as on cuneiform tablets, primarily from Hattusa (Boghazköy), the capital of the Hittites, whose civilization was greatly influenced by the Hurrians. Tablets from Nuzi, Alalakh, and other cities with Hurrian populations (as shown by personal names) reveal Hurrian cultural features even though they were written in Akkadian. Hurrian cylinder seals were carefully carved and often portrayed mythological motifs. They are

846-558: A location in ancient Phrygia is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a populated place in the Byzantine Empire is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This geographical article about a location in Afyonkarahisar Province , Turkey is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Anatolia Anatolia ( Turkish : Anadolu ), also known as Asia Minor ,

940-687: A people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age . They spoke the Hurrian language , and lived throughout northern Syria , upper Mesopotamia and southeastern Anatolia . The Hurrians were first documented in the city of Urkesh , where they built their first kingdom. Their largest and most influential Hurrian kingdom was Mitanni . The population of the Hittite Empire in Anatolia included

1034-477: A region stretching from the Caucasus Mountains in the north, to the borders of northern Assyria and northern Ancient Iran in the south, and controlled much of eastern Anatolia. Some scientists consider Urartu to be a re-consolidation of earlier Hurrian populations mainly due to linguistic factors, but this view is not universally held. After the destruction of Mitanni by the Hittites around 1350-1325 BC,

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1128-647: A sizeable Armenian population before the Armenian genocide ) an "ahistorical imposition" and notes that a growing body of literature is uncomfortable with referring to the Ottoman East as "Eastern Anatolia". The highest mountain in the Eastern Anatolia Region (also the highest peak in the Armenian Highlands ) is Mount Ararat (5123 m). The Euphrates , Aras , Karasu and Murat rivers connect

1222-700: Is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey . It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west, the Turkish Straits to the northwest, and the Black Sea to the north. The eastern and southeastern limits have been expanded either to the entirety of Asiatic Turkey or to an imprecise line from

1316-451: Is characterized by reddish painted lines with a geometric triangular pattern and dots, while Nuzi ware has very distinctive forms, and are painted in brown or black. They were also skilled at glass working. The Hurrians had a reputation in metallurgy . It is proposed that the Sumerian term for "coppersmith" tabira / tibira was borrowed from Hurrian, which would imply an early presence of

1410-565: Is not well understood how the Osmanlı, or Ottoman Turks , came to dominate their neighbours, as the history of medieval Anatolia is still little known. The Ottomans completed the conquest of the peninsula in 1517 with the taking of Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum ) from the Knights of Saint John . With the acceleration of the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century, and as a result of

1504-610: Is probably a Medieval Latin innovation. The modern Turkish form Anadolu derives directly from the Greek name Aνατολή ( Anatolḗ ). The Russian male name Anatoly , the French Anatole and plain Anatol , all stemming from saints Anatolius of Laodicea (d. 283) and Anatolius of Constantinople (d. 458; the first Patriarch of Constantinople ), share the same linguistic origin. The oldest known name for any region within Anatolia

1598-467: Is related to its central area, known as the "Land of Hatti " – a designation that was initially used for the land of ancient Hattians , but later became the most common name for the entire territory under the rule of ancient Hittites . The first recorded name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula, though not particularly popular at the time, was Ἀσία ( Asía ), perhaps from an Akkadian expression for

1692-685: The Aeolian , Ionian and Dorian colonies situated along the eastern coasts of the Aegean Sea , but also encompassing eastern regions in general. Such use of Anatolian designations was employed during the reign of Roman Emperor Diocletian ( r.  284–305 ), who created the Diocese of the East , known in Greek as the Eastern Diocese, but completely unrelated to the regions of Asia Minor. In their widest territorial scope, Anatolian designations were employed during

1786-483: The Amarna Letters during the time of Pharaoh Akhenaten (1353–1336 BC). Domestically, Mitanni records have been found at a number of places in the region including several Hittite sites as well as Tell Bazi , Alalakh , Nuzi , Mardaman , Kemune , and Müslümantepe among others. Another major center of Hurrian influence was the kingdom of Arrapha . Excavations at Yorgan Tepe, ancient Nuzi, proved this to be one of

1880-585: The Anatolian languages , the earliest attested branch of Indo-European, have been spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BCE. The earliest historical data related to Anatolia appear during the Bronze Age and continue throughout the Iron Age . The most ancient period in the history of Anatolia spans from the emergence of ancient Hattians , up to the conquest of Anatolia by the Achaemenid Empire in

1974-946: The Arab invasion of the Levant (634–638). In the 10 years following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Seljuk Turks from Central Asia migrated over large areas of Anatolia, with particular concentrations around the northwestern rim. The Turkish language and the Islamic religion were gradually introduced as a result of the Seljuk conquest, and this period marks the start of Anatolia's slow transition from predominantly Christian and Greek-speaking, to predominantly Muslim and Turkish-speaking (although ethnic groups such as Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians remained numerous and retained Christianity and their native languages). In

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2068-620: The Balkans . The Phrygian expansion into southeast Anatolia was eventually halted by the Assyrians, who controlled that region. Another Indo-European people, the Luwians , rose to prominence in central and western Anatolia c.  2000 BCE. Their language belonged to the same linguistic branch as Hittite . The general consensus amongst scholars is that Luwian was spoken across a large area of western Anatolia, including (possibly) Wilusa ( Troy ),

2162-826: The Black Sea to the Gulf of Alexandretta . Topographically, the Sea of Marmara connects the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles , and separates Anatolia from Thrace in Southeast Europe . During the Neolithic , Anatolia was an early centre for the development of farming after it originated in the adjacent Fertile Crescent . Beginning around 9,000 years ago, there

2256-510: The Black Sea , coterminous with the Anatolian Plateau . This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary . Under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands , and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia . To the southeast, it is bounded by

2350-642: The Büyük Menderes River as well as some interior high plains in Anatolia, mainly around Lake Tuz (Salt Lake) and the Konya Basin ( Konya Ovasi ). There are two mountain ranges in southern Anatolia: the Taurus and the Zagros mountains. Hurrians The Hurrians ( / ˈ h ʊər i ən z / ; Hurrian : 𒄷𒌨𒊑 , romanized:  Ḫu-ur-ri ; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri) were

2444-463: The Eastern Anatolia Region , which largely corresponds to the historical region of Western Armenia (named as such after the division of Greater Armenia between the Roman / Byzantine Empire (Western Armenia) and Sassanid Persia ( Eastern Armenia ) in 387 AD). Vazken Davidian terms the expanded use of "Anatolia" to apply to territory in eastern Turkey that was formerly referred to as Armenia (which had

2538-732: The Greek and Roman eras. During the 6th century BCE, all of Anatolia was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire , the Persians having usurped the Medes as the dominant dynasty of Persia . In 499 BCE, the Ionian city-states on the west coast of Anatolia rebelled against Persian rule. The Ionian Revolt , as it became known, though quelled, initiated the Greco-Persian Wars , which ended in

2632-648: The Hellenic world . He has been called the greatest ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus. Further annexations by Rome, in particular of the Kingdom of Pontus by Pompey , brought all of Anatolia under Roman control , except for the southeastern frontier with the Parthian Empire , which remained unstable for centuries, causing a series of military conflicts that culminated in the Roman–Parthian Wars (54 BCE – 217 CE). After

2726-446: The Hurrian and Urartian languages are related, there is little similarity between corresponding systems of belief. The main gods in the Hurrian pantheon were: Hurrian cylinder seals often depict mythological creatures such as winged humans or animals, dragons and other monsters. The interpretation of these depictions of gods and demons remains uncertain. They may have been both protective and evil spirits. Some are reminiscent of

2820-641: The Later Roman Empire . Anatolia's wealth grew during the 4th and 5th centuries thanks, in part, to the Pilgrim's Road that ran through the peninsula. Literary evidence about the rural landscape stems from the Christian hagiographies of the 6th-century Nicholas of Sion and 7th-century Theodore of Sykeon . Large and prosperous urban centers of Byzantine Anatolia included Assos , Ephesus , Miletus , Nicaea , Pergamum , Priene , Sardis , and Aphrodisias . From

2914-510: The Paleolithic . Neolithic settlements include Çatalhöyük , Çayönü , Nevali Cori , Aşıklı Höyük , Boncuklu Höyük , Hacilar , Göbekli Tepe , Norşuntepe , Köşk Höyük , and Yumuktepe . Çatalhöyük (7.000 BCE) is considered the most advanced of these. Recent advances in archaeogenetics have confirmed that the spread of agriculture from the Middle East to Europe was strongly correlated with

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3008-703: The Roman Republic ; western and central Anatolia came under Roman control , but Hellenistic culture remained predominant. Mithridates VI Eupator , ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus in northern Anatolia, waged war against the Roman Republic in the year 88 BCE in order to halt the advance of Roman hegemony in the Aegean Sea region. Mithridates VI sought to dominate Asia Minor and the Black Sea region, waging several hard-fought but ultimately unsuccessful wars (the Mithridatic Wars ) to break Roman dominion over Asia and

3102-649: The Vallahades from Greek Macedonia ), were resettled in various parts of Anatolia, mostly in formerly Christian villages throughout Anatolia. A continuous reverse migration occurred since the early 19th century, when Greeks from Anatolia, Constantinople and Pontus area migrated toward the newly independent Kingdom of Greece , and also towards the United States , the southern part of the Russian Empire , Latin America, and

3196-437: The first division of the Roman Empire , Anatolia became part of the Eastern Roman Empire , otherwise known as the Byzantine Empire or Byzantium . In the 1st century CE, Anatolia became one of the first places where Christianity spread , so that by the 4th century CE, western and central Anatolia were overwhelmingly Christian and Greek-speaking. Byzantine Anatolia was one of the wealthiest and most densely populated places in

3290-430: The migration of early farmers from Anatolia about 9,000 years ago, and was not just a cultural exchange. Anatolian Neolithic farmers derived most of their ancestry from local Anatolian hunter-gatherers , suggesting that agriculture was adopted in site by these hunter-gatherers and not spread by demic diffusion into the region. Anatolian derived Neolithic Farmers would subsequently spread across Europe, as far west as

3384-462: The "sunrise" or possibly echoing the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. The Romans used it as the name of their province , comprising the west of the peninsula plus the nearby Aegean Islands . As the name "Asia" broadened its scope to apply to the vaster region east of the Mediterranean, some Greeks in Late Antiquity came to use the name Asia Minor (Μικρὰ Ἀσία, Mikrà Asía ), meaning "Lesser Asia" to refer to present-day Anatolia, whereas

3478-447: The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey . Of the remainder, most have left Turkey since then, leaving fewer than 5,000 Greeks in Anatolia today. According to Morris and Ze'evi, 4 million christians were ethnically cleansed from Asia minor by the Turks from 1894 to 1924. Anatolia's terrain is structurally complex. A central massif composed of uplifted blocks and downfolded troughs , covered by recent deposits and giving

3572-462: The 6th century BCE. The earliest historically attested populations of Anatolia were the Hattians in central Anatolia, and Hurrians further to the east. The Hattians were an indigenous people, whose main center was the city of Hattush . Affiliation of Hattian language remains unclear, while Hurrian language belongs to a distinctive family of Hurro-Urartian languages . All of those languages are extinct; relationships with indigenous languages of

3666-850: The Armenian Highlands to the South Caucasus and the Upper Euphrates Valley. Along with the Çoruh , these rivers are the longest in the Eastern Anatolia Region. The English-language name Anatolia derives from the Greek Ἀνατολή ( Anatolḗ ) meaning "the East" and designating (from a Greek point of view) eastern regions in general. The Greek word refers to the direction where the sun rises, coming from ἀνατέλλω anatello '(Ι) rise up', comparable to terms in other languages such as " levant " from Latin levo 'to rise', " orient " from Latin orior 'to arise, to originate', Hebrew מִזְרָח mizraḥ 'east' from זָרַח zaraḥ 'to rise, to shine', Aramaic מִדְנָח midnaḥ from דְּנַח denaḥ 'to rise, to shine'. The use of Anatolian designations has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to

3760-405: The Assyrian shedu . The Hurrian gods do not appear to have had particular home temples, like in the Mesopotamian or Ancient Egyptian religion . Some important cult centres were Kummanni in Kizzuwatna and Hittite Yazilikaya . Harran was at least later a religious centre for the moon god, and Shauskha had an important temple in Nineve , when the city was under Hurrian rule. A temple of Nergal

3854-544: The Assyrian colony of Kanesh , use an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. Unlike the Akkadians and Assyrians, whose Anatolian trading posts were peripheral to their core lands in Mesopotamia , the Hittites were centered at Hattusa (modern Boğazkale) in north-central Anatolia by the 17th century BCE. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language , or nesili (the language of Nesa) in Hittite. The Hittites originated from local ancient cultures that grew in Anatolia, in addition to

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3948-411: The Babylonians and Scythians briefly appropriating some territory. From the late 8th century BCE, a new wave of Indo-European-speaking raiders entered northern and northeast Anatolia: the Cimmerians and Scythians . The Cimmerians overran Phrygia and the Scythians threatened to do the same to Urartu and Lydia , before both were finally checked by the Assyrians. The north-western coast of Anatolia

4042-527: The Caucasus have been proposed, but are not generally accepted. The region became famous for exporting raw materials. Organized trade between Anatolia and Mesopotamia started to emerge during the period of the Akkadian Empire , and was continued and intensified during the period of the Old Assyrian Empire , between the 21st and the 18th centuries BCE. Assyrian traders were bringing tin and textiles in exchange for copper, silver or gold. Cuneiform records, dated c.  20th century BCE , found in Anatolia at

4136-399: The Egyptians, annexing much Hittite (and Hurrian) territory in these regions. After 1180 BCE, during the Late Bronze Age collapse , the Hittite Empire disintegrated into several independent Syro-Hittite states , subsequent to losing much territory to the Middle Assyrian Empire and being finally overrun by the Phrygians , another Indo-European people who are believed to have migrated from

4230-451: The Hurrian deity Teshub , and several Shubrian names have Hurrian origins. Hurrians formed part of the Shubrian population and may have been the predominant group. Some scholars have suggested that Shubria was the last remnant of Hurrian civilization, or even constituted the original homeland of the Hurrians. Karen Radner writes that Shubria "can certainly be described as [a] (linguistically and culturally) Hurrian" state. According to Radner,

4324-429: The Hurrians way before their first historical mention in Akkadian sources. Copper was traded south to Mesopotamia from the highlands of Anatolia . The Khabur Valley had a central position in the metal trade, and copper, silver and even tin were accessible from the Hurrian-dominated countries Kizzuwatna and Ishuwa situated in the Anatolian highland. Gold was in short supply, and the Amarna letters inform us that it

4418-400: The Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles, as well as to the Maghreb . Most modern Europeans derive a significant part of their ancestry from these Neolithic Anatolian farmers. Neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family , although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that

4512-411: The Seha River Land (to be identified with the Hermos and/or Kaikos valley), and the kingdom of Mira-Kuwaliya with its core territory of the Maeander valley. From the 9th century BCE, Luwian regions coalesced into a number of states such as Lydia , Caria , and Lycia , all of which had Hellenic influence. Arameans encroached over the borders of south-central Anatolia in the century or so after

4606-438: The Syrian Department of Antiquities. The tells, or city mounds, often reveal a long occupation beginning in the Neolithic and ending in the Roman period or later. The characteristic Hurrian pottery, the Khabur ware, is helpful in determining the different strata of occupation within the mounds. The Hurrian settlements are usually identified from the Middle Bronze Age to the end of the Late Bronze Age, with Tell Mozan (Urkesh) being

4700-475: The administration of the Empire preferred the description Ἀνατολή ( Anatolḗ ; lit.   ' the East ' ). The endonym Ῥωμανία ( Rōmanía "the land of the Romans, i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire") was understood as another name for the province by the invading Seljuq Turks , who founded a Sultanate of Rûm in 1077. Thus (land of the) Rûm became another name for Anatolia. By the 12th century Europeans had started referring to Anatolia as Turchia . During

4794-669: The ancient sites are the many dam projects in the Euphrates , Tigris and Khabur valleys. Several rescue operations have already been undertaken when the construction of dams put entire river valleys under water. The first major excavations of Hurrian sites in Iraq and Syria began in the 1920s and 1930s. They were led by the American archaeologist Edward Chiera at Yorghan Tepe (Nuzi), and the British archaeologist Max Mallowan at Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak. Recent excavations and surveys in progress are conducted by American, Belgian, Danish, Dutch, French, German and Italian teams of archaeologists, with international participants, in cooperation with

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4888-407: The appearance of a plateau with rough terrain, is wedged between two folded mountain ranges that converge in the east. True lowland is confined to a few narrow coastal strips along the Aegean, Mediterranean, and the Black Sea coasts. Flat or gently sloping land is rare and largely confined to the deltas of the Kızıl River , the coastal plains of Çukurova and the valley floors of the Gediz River and

4982-415: The area of Kirkuk in modern Iraq by the Middle Bronze Age . Their presence was attested at Nuzi , Urkesh and other sites. They eventually occupied a broad arc of fertile farmland stretching from the Khabur River valley in the west to the foothills of the Zagros Mountains in the east. By this point, during the Old Babylonian period in the early second millennium BC, the Amorite kingdom of Mari to

5076-466: The arrival of Indo-European languages. Attested for the first time in the Assyrian tablets of Nesa around 2000 BCE, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BCE, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland , however, the Hittites (along with the other Indo-European ancient Anatolians ) were themselves relatively recent immigrants to Anatolia from

5170-401: The bulk of the area of modern-day Turkey. Nonetheless, a variety of non- Turkic languages continue to be spoken by ethnic minorities in Anatolia today, including Arabic , Kurdish , Neo-Aramaic , Armenian , the North Caucasian languages , Laz , Georgian , and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to an indefinite line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to

5264-421: The coastal region of Adaniya in the country of Kizzuwatna , southern Anatolia. Yamhad eventually weakened vis-a-vis the powerful Hittites, but this also opened Anatolia for Hurrian cultural influences. The Hittites were influenced by both the Hurrian cultures over the course of several centuries. The city of Shibaniba (Tell Billa) may have also played an important role at that time. Possible Hurrian occupation

5358-399: The coasts of Anatolia. Greeks started Western philosophy on the western coast of Anatolia ( Pre-Socratic philosophy ). In Classical antiquity , Anatolia was described by the Ancient Greek historian Herodotus and later historians as divided into regions that were diverse in culture, language, and religious practices. The northern regions included Bithynia , Paphlagonia , and Pontus ; to

5452-470: The control of the Assyrians. The Hurrian entity of Mitanni, which first rose to power before 1550 BC, was first mentioned in the records of Egyptian pharaohs Thutmose I (1506–1493 BC) and Thutmose III (1479–1425 BC), the later most notably associated with the Battle of Megiddo in that pharaoh's 22 regnal year. Most of the time Egyptians referred to the kingdom as Naharin . Later, Mitanni and Hanigalbat (the Assyrian name for Mitanni) are mentioned in

5546-404: The control of the Mongols, at least nominally, through declining Seljuk sultans. The Beyliks did not mint coins in the names of their own leaders while they remained under the suzerainty of the Mongol Ilkhanids . The Osmanli ruler Osman I was the first Turkish ruler who minted coins in his own name in 1320s; they bear the legend "Minted by Osman son of Ertugrul". Since the minting of coins

5640-439: The death of Alexander the Great and the subsequent breakup of the Macedonian Empire , Anatolia was ruled by a series of Hellenistic kingdoms, such as the Attalids of Pergamum and the Seleucids , the latter controlling most of Anatolia. A period of peaceful Hellenization followed, such that the local Anatolian languages had been supplanted by Greek by the 1st century BCE. In 133 BCE the last Attalid king bequeathed his kingdom to

5734-405: The decline of the Ilkhanate from 1335 to 1353, the Mongol Empire 's legacy in the region was the Uyghur Eretna Dynasty that was overthrown by Kadi Burhan al-Din in 1381. By the end of the 14th century, most of Anatolia was controlled by various Anatolian beyliks . Smyrna fell in 1330, and the last Byzantine stronghold in Anatolia, Philadelphia, fell in 1390. The Turkmen Beyliks were under

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5828-418: The defeat of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. The empire reached its height in the 13th century BCE, controlling much of Asia Minor, northwestern Syria , and northwest upper Mesopotamia. However, the Hittite advance toward the Black Sea coast was halted by the semi-nomadic pastoralist and tribal Kaskians , a non-Indo-European people who had earlier displaced the Palaic-speaking Indo-Europeans. Much of

5922-457: The early 20th century (see the rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire ). During World War I, the Armenian genocide , the Greek genocide (especially in Pontus ), and the Assyrian genocide almost entirely removed the ancient indigenous communities of Armenian , Greek , and Assyrian populations in Anatolia and surrounding regions. Following the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922 , most remaining ethnic Anatolian Greeks were forced out during

6016-409: The era of classical antiquity (see Classical Anatolia ), the Anatolian languages were largely replaced by the Greek language , which came to further dominate the region during the Hellenistic period and the Roman period . The Byzantine period saw the decline of Greek influence throughout the peninsula as the Byzantine–Seljuk wars enabled the incoming Seljuk Turks to establish a foothold in

6110-523: The era of the Ottoman Empire , many mapmakers referred to the mountainous plateau in eastern Anatolia as Armenia . Other contemporary sources called the same area Kurdistan . Geographers have used East Anatolian plateau , Armenian plateau and the Iranian plateau to refer to the region; the former two largely overlap. While a standard definition of Anatolia refers to the entire Asian side of Turkey, according to archaeologist Lori Khatchadourian, this difference in terminology "primarily result[s] from

6204-529: The expansionist policies of the Russian Empire in the Caucasus , many Muslim nations and groups in that region, mainly Circassians , Tatars , Azeris , Lezgis , Chechens and several Turkic groups left their homelands and settled in Anatolia. As the Ottoman Empire further shrank in the Balkan regions and then fragmented during the Balkan Wars , much of the non-Christian populations of its former possessions, mainly Balkan Muslims ( Bosniaks , Albanians , Turks , Muslim Bulgarians and Greek Muslims such as

6298-478: The fall of the Hittite empire, and some of the Syro-Hittite states in this region became an amalgam of Hittites and Arameans. These became known as Syro-Hittite states . From the 10th to late 7th centuries BCE, much of Anatolia (particularly the southeastern regions) fell to the Neo-Assyrian Empire , including all of the Syro-Hittite states , Tabal , Commagene , the Cimmerians and Scythians , and swathes of Cappadocia . The Neo-Assyrian empire collapsed due to

6392-418: The following century, the Byzantines managed to reassert their control in western and northern Anatolia. Control of Anatolia was then split between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm , with the Byzantine holdings gradually being reduced. In 1255, the Mongols swept through eastern and central Anatolia, and would remain until 1335. The Ilkhanate garrison was stationed near Ankara . After

6486-486: The history of the Hittite Empire concerned war with the rival empires of Egypt , Assyria and the Mitanni . The Ancient Egyptians eventually withdrew from the region after failing to gain the upper hand over the Hittites and becoming wary of the power of Assyria, which had destroyed the Mitanni Empire. The Assyrians and Hittites were then left to battle over control of eastern and southern Anatolia and colonial territories in Syria . The Assyrians had better success than

6580-399: The latter to the northern part of the Mesopotamian plain. According to Richard Hovannisian , this changing of toponyms was "necessary to obscure all evidence" of the Armenian presence as part of the policy of Armenian genocide denial embarked upon by the newly established Turkish government and what Hovannisian calls its "foreign collaborators". Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to

6674-401: The mid-5th century onwards, urbanism was affected negatively and began to decline, while the rural areas reached unprecedented levels of prosperity in the region. Historians and scholars continue to debate the cause of the urban decline in Byzantine Anatolia between the 6th and 7th centuries, variously attributing it to the Plague of Justinian (541), the Byzantine–Sasanian War (602–628), and

6768-536: The most important sites for our knowledge about the Hurrians. Hurrian kings such as Ithi-Teshup and Ithiya ruled over Arrapha, yet by the mid-fifteenth century BC they had become vassals of the Great King of Mitanni. At the end of the second millennium BC the Urartians around Lake Van and Mount Ararat rose in power forming the Kingdom of Urartu . During the 11th and 10th centuries BC, the kingdom eventually encompassed

6862-523: The north. However, they did not necessarily displace the population genetically; they assimilated into the former peoples' culture, preserving the Hittite language. The Hittites adopted the Mesopotamian cuneiform script . In the Late Bronze Age, Hittite New Kingdom ( c.  1650 BCE ) was founded, becoming an empire in the 14th century BCE after the conquest of Kizzuwatna in the south-east and

6956-673: The northwest, the Galatian variant of Gaulish in Galatia until the 6th century CE, Cappadocian in the homonymous region, Armenian in the east, and Kartvelian languages in the northeast. Anatolia is known as the birthplace of minted coinage (as opposed to unminted coinage, which first appears in Mesopotamia at a much earlier date) as a medium of exchange, some time in the 7th century BCE in Lydia. The use of minted coins continued to flourish during

7050-720: The only remaining part of the Byzantine East , and thus commonly referred to (in Greek) as the Eastern part of the Empire. At the same time, the Anatolic Theme ( Ἀνατολικὸν θέμα / "the Eastern theme") was created, as a province ( theme ) covering the western and central parts of Turkey's present-day Central Anatolia Region , centered around Iconium , but ruled from the city of Amorium . The Latinized form " Anatolia ", with its -ia ending,

7144-599: The ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria and the Mesopotamian plain. Following the Armenian genocide , Western Armenia was renamed the Eastern Anatolia Region by the newly established Turkish government. In 1941, with the First Geography Congress which divided Turkey into seven geographical regions based on differences in climate and landscape, the eastern provinces of Turkey were placed into

7238-620: The region. Thus, the process of Anatolia's Turkification began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century and continued under the Ottoman Empire until the early 20th century, when the Ottoman dynasty collapsed in the aftermath of World War I . Between 1894 and 1924, millions of non- Turkic peoples and Christians were suppressed and removed by the Ottoman Turkish authorities from

7332-577: The reign of Roman Emperor Constantine I (306–337), who created the Praetorian prefecture of the East , known in Greek as the Eastern Prefecture, encompassing all eastern regions of the Late Roman Empire and spanning from Thrace to Egypt . Only after the loss of other eastern regions during the 7th century and the reduction of Byzantine eastern domains to Asia Minor, that region became

7426-548: The rest of Europe. Following the Russo-Persian Treaty of Turkmenchay (1828) and the incorporation of Eastern Armenia into the Russian Empire, another migration involved the large Armenian population of Anatolia, which recorded significant migration rates from Western Armenia (Eastern Anatolia) toward the Russian Empire, especially toward its newly established Armenian provinces. Anatolia remained multi-ethnic until

7520-577: The shifting political fortunes and cultural trajectories of the region since the nineteenth century". Turkey's First Geography Congress in 1941 created two geographical regions of Turkey to the east of the Gulf of Iskenderun-Black Sea line, the Eastern Anatolia Region and the Southeastern Anatolia Region , the former largely corresponding to the western part of the Armenian Highlands,

7614-417: The south had subdued Urkesh and made it a vassal state. Urkesh later became a Mitanni religious center. The Hurrians also migrated further west in this period. By 1725 BC they are found also in parts of northern Syria , such as Alalakh . The mixed Amorite–Hurrian kingdom of Yamhad is recorded as struggling for this area with the early Hittite king Hattusilis I around 1600 BC. Hurrians also settled in

7708-448: The southeast, and later by the Assyrians to the east. At its maximum extent Mitanni ranged as far as west as Kizzuwatna by the Taurus mountains, Tunip in the south, Arraphe in the east, and north to Lake Van . Their sphere of influence is shown in spread Hurrian place names, personal names. Eventually, after an internal succession crisis, Mitanni fell to the Hittites, later to fall under

7802-869: The southeast, while Galatian , a Celtic language , was spoken throughout Galatia in the central peninsula. Among the other peoples who established a significant presence in ancient Anatolia were the Galatians , the Hurrians , the Assyrians , the Armenians , the Hattians , and the Cimmerians , as well as some of the ancient Greek tribes , including the Ionians , the Dorians , and the Aeolians . In

7896-605: The swallowed gods is like the Hurrian myth of Teshub and Kumarbi. It has been argued that the worship of Attis drew on Hurrian myth. The agglutinating and highly ergative Hurrian language is related to the Urartian language, the language of the ancient kingdom of Urartu. Together they form the Hurro-Urartian language family . The external connections of the Hurro-Urartian languages are disputed. There exist various proposals for

7990-596: The term Shubaru was used in Assyrian sources to refer to the remnants of the Mitanni in the upper Tigris valley. The Shubaru people revolted against the Assyrians multiple times in the last centuries of the second millennium BC. The term is related to Shubria , the name of a country located north of the upper Tigris River valley. Shubria was located between Urartu and Assyria and existed as an independent kingdom until its conquest by Assyria in 673–672 BC. The Shubrians worshipped

8084-464: The third millennium BC. There is evidence that they were initially allied with the Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia , indicating they had a firm hold on the area by the reign of Naram-Sin of Akkad (c. 2254–2218 BC). A king of Urkesh with the Hurrian name Tupkish had a queen with the name Uqnitum, Akkadian for "girl of lapis lazuli". Hurrian names occur sporadically in northwestern Mesopotamia and

8178-417: The west were Mysia , Lydia , and Caria; and Lycia , Pamphylia , and Cilicia belonged to the southern shore. There were also several inland regions: Phrygia , Cappadocia , Pisidia , and Galatia . Languages spoken included the late surviving Anatolic languages , Isaurian , and Pisidian , Greek in western and coastal regions, Phrygian spoken until the 7th century CE, local variants of Thracian in

8272-748: Was a major migration of Anatolian Neolithic Farmers into Europe , with their descendants coming to dominate the continent as far west as the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles . The earliest recorded inhabitants of Anatolia , who were neither Indo-European nor Semitic , were gradually absorbed by the incoming Indo-European Anatolian peoples , who spoke the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The major Anatolian languages included Hittite , Luwian , and Lydian ; other local languages, albeit poorly attested, included Phrygian and Mysian . The Hurro-Urartian languages were spoken throughout Mitanni in

8366-607: Was a prerogative accorded in Islamic practice only to a sovereign , it can be considered that the Osmanli, or Ottoman Turks, had become formally independent from the Mongol Khans. Among the Turkish leaders, the Ottomans emerged as great power under Osman I and his son Orhan . The Anatolian beyliks were successively absorbed into the rising Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. It

8460-439: Was acquired from Egypt. Not many examples of Hurrian metal work have survived, except from the later Urartu. Some small fine bronze lion foundation pegs were discovered at Urkesh. Among the Hurrian texts from Ugarit are the oldest known instances of written music , dating from c. 1400 BC. Among these fragments are found the names of four Hurrian composers, Tapšiẖuni, Puẖiya(na), Urẖiya, and Ammiya. The Hurrian culture made

8554-450: Was built in Urkesh in the late third millennium BC. The town of Kahat was a religious centre in the kingdom of Mitanni. The Hurrian myth "The Songs of Ullikummi", preserved among the Hittites, is a parallel to Hesiod 's Theogony ; the castration of Uranus by Cronus may be derived from the castration of Anu by Kumarbi , while Zeus 's overthrow of Cronus and Cronus's regurgitation of

8648-512: Was identified at Tell Billa during the middle of the second millenium BC. In 2022 Tell Billa was proposed as the possible site of the city of Šimānum (possibly known as Asimānum during the Akkadian Empire). Šimānum was important during the Ur III period (ca 2100 BC). The Mitanni Empire was a strong regional power limited by the Hittites to the north, Egyptians to the southwest, Kassites to

8742-532: Was inhabited by Greeks of the Achaean / Mycenaean culture from the 20th century BCE, related to the Greeks of southeastern Europe and the Aegean . Beginning with the Bronze Age collapse at the end of the 2nd millennium BCE, the west coast of Anatolia was settled by Ionian Greeks , usurping the area of the related but earlier Mycenaean Greeks . Over several centuries, numerous Ancient Greek city-states were established on

8836-443: Was the only long Hurrian text known until a multi-tablet collection of literature in Hurrian with a Hittite translation was discovered at Hattusa in 1983. Hurrian settlements are distributed over three modern countries, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The heart of the Hurrian world is bisected by the modern border between Syria and Turkey. Several sites are situated within the border zone, making access for excavations problematic. A threat to

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