Past Civilizations in Anatolia

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Past Civilizationsin Anatolia
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ANATOLIA TIMELINE

• The Prehistoric period
• The Hittite civilization
• Urartian
• Phrygian
• Lydian
• Hellenistic
• The Roman
• Byzantine
• Seljuk
• Ottoman Empire
• Turkish Republic

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• Anatolia has had settlers by different nations
  since the beginning of history, so it is called
  the cradle of civilizations.
• It is estimated there are 40,000 archaeological
  sites in Turkey.
• Some of these sites date back to the paleolithic
  age, which ended approximately 10,000 years ago.
• Nevali Cori, one such site, revealed that humans
  were farming as early as 13,000 years ago.

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Neolithic Age(10,000- 7500 Before Present)

• Anatolia has the most comprehensive sites for
  this age.
• The neolithic settlers in Anatolia raised sheep
  and goat, domesticated dogs, and their buildings
  had sometimes two stories.
• Çatalhöyük is one of the neolithic settlements.

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A fresco from Çatalhöyük, 7000 B.P.
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• Detail from another fresco of a deer hunt,
  depicting a hunter wearing a leopard skin.
• Painted plaster from Çatalhöyük, 8000 B.P.

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• The neolithic settlers in Anatolia had a Mother
  Goddess cult. Figurines of this goddess,
  depicted as woman who has given birth, is all
  over Anatolia.
• Çatalhöyük , 7,750 B. P.

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Bronze Age(4000-3200 B.P.)

• At the beginning of this period Anatolians
  learned how to make tools, ornaments and ritual
  figurines from bronze, an alloy of copper and
  tin.
• They also used gold and electron, an alloy of
  gold and silver.
• Alacahöyük is an important Bronze age site in
  central Anatolia.

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Troy

• The famous epics of Homer, the Iliad and Odyssea,
  narrate the siege of the beautiful city of Troy
  and its aftermath.
• Troy was actually a settlement in Anatolia.
• Like many other sites, especially höyüks, the
  site of Troy was settled many times by different
  people.
• So the ruins of Troy, which dated to 5000 B.P.
  were overlaid by another, which was five
  centuries younger.

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• In 1870, a German businessman, Schliemann, came
  to look for the treasures mentioned in the epics.
  
• He discovered the site, excavated it,and indeed
  found a treasure.
• Without letting the Ottoman authorities know, he
  smuggled the treasure to Greece.
• To do this, he melted some of the 4000 year old
  golden artifacts.
• The rest of the treasure was lost during World
  War II.

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• Later, true archaeologists discovered that
  Schliemann was mistaken about the age of the
  treasure it was not of Troy, but a
  settlement-level 500 years younger.
• The ruins of Troy, in Çanakkale , are still
  excavated and are visited by many tourists every
  year.

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Hittites

• Hittites were Indo-European people who came to
  Anatolia 5000 B.P.
• Modern linguists have recently found that their
  language was closest to a 9000 year old language
  called proto-Indo European, from which all
  European languages sprang.
• Hittites built a great civilization all over
  Anatolia.
• They had diplomatic and commercial relations with
  many other civilizations, especially ancient
  Egyptians.
• They are mentioned in the Old Testament.

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Hattusas, the Hittite capital
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• Bronze stag statuette,
• Hittite artifact.
• Alacahöyük ,
• fifth millennium B. P.

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• Bull statuette, bronze, Alacahöyük, fifth
  millennium BP.
• There is evidence from other finds that
  statuettes of bulls and stags were cult objects
  representing deities.
• It is thought that the cults associated with
  these animals that formed an important part of
  later religious beliefs started in Early Bronze
  Age .
• This statuette must have been carried as a
  standard in religious processions.

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• Ceremonial standard, bronze, Alacahöyük,
  fifth millennium BP.
• Such ritual objects frequently depict a sun disk
  flanked by bull's horns, although they come in
  many different designs.

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• An Assyrian cuneiform tablet from 3800 BP.
• In hundreds of similar tablets and also
  hieroglyphs, Hittites left information about
  their civilization and records of their
  transactions with other civilizations.

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URARTIANS

• After the fall of the Hittite empire the new
  kingdom was formed in Eastern Anatolia to survive
  for 300 years.
• Metal craftsmanship was very advanced in Urartu
  and perhaps the greatest proof of this was the
  fact that Urartian artifacts were exported to
  many places.

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• Van region

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• This is how the magnificent bull headed cauldrons
  of the Urartu came to be found in Italy.

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Phrygians(3200-1400 BP)

• Phrygians were other Indo-European people who
  came to Anatolia 3200 years ago.
• They founded, among other cities, Ankara, the
  capital of Turkey.
• They had been a sea-faring nation, Ancyra,
  originally meant anchor- Phrygians named the
  city metaphorically, after their wish to drop
  anchor there.

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• Another city they founded was Gordion, there was
  a sacred knot in a temple in this city.
• It was a huge, complicated version of a sailors
  knot. Phyrigians believed that the person who
  undid the knot would bring disaster on their
  city.
• Around 300 B.C., Alexander the Great came to
  Gordion. He could not undo it, so he simply cut
  it. His army also destroyed the city. Hence the
  idiom, cutting the knot of Gordion.

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The burial chamber of Midas

• The skeleton of King Midas was laid on a large
  bench, surrounded by other benches full of gifts
  for the afterworld. King Midas died when he was
  around 60 years old and he was 1.59m tall.

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• Midas who, according to the legend, turned
  everything he touched to gold and also had
  asinine ears, was actually a Phrygian king.
• This statuette of Midas was found in Gordion.

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• Phrygian toy in the form of a lion and a bull,
  Gordion, 2800 BP.

• Bull relief, Ankara,
• 2700 BP.

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• The Phrygians also had the mother goddess
  cult, their name for her was Cybele.
• This statue of Cybele dates to 2600 years ago.

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• Phrygian vessel, Gordion, 2800 BP.

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The exact likes of this Phrygian
bowl have been produced for millennia by Turkish
artisans.
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Phrygian cauldron, Amphora 2800 BP.
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Lydians

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

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Greeks and Romans the Hellenistic
PeriodByzantines

• The Aegean cost of Turkey was part of the ancient
  Greek civilizations of Minos and Mycene.
• Ionia, Lydia, Doria were some of the Anatolian
  civilizations of Hellenic origin that flourished
  until the Roman conquest.
• The ancient Greeks also gave Anatolia its name,
  which means sunrise.

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Side-note ?

• The Turkish word Rum means Greek-speaking.
• Rums are descendants of the Hellenic people and
  still live in Anatolia, as a small minority.
• Most Rums, however, were exchanged with the
  Turkish minority in Greece between 1928-1957.

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• On the other hand, the country that became modern
  Greece was for a long time under Ottoman rule.
  The present day Greeks do not cherish the memory
  of this period.
• Due to this and the Greek efforts to revive
  the Hellenic dream of making Anatolia Greek
  again, Turkey and Greece has had strained
  diplomatic relations over the years.

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• The Roman Empire was divided into Greek-speaking
  and Latin speaking parts in A.D. 285.
• In 330 A.D., Emperor Constantine, finalizing the
  breech between the parts of the empire,
  established a new capital for the Eastern Roman
  Empire, or Byzantium.
• The capital, named Constantinople after its
  founder, was conquered in 1453 by Ottomans and
  became also the capital of the Ottoman Empire for
  5 more centuries. Today it is known as Istanbul.

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Mehmet the Conqueror had the Rumeli Castle built
in 1452 to facilitate the siege of Istanbul.
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Ephesus is one of the many cities in Anatolia
which were founded by Greeks and later became
Roman colonies.
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• It is recorded in the New Testament that St. Paul
  came to and preached in Ephesus.
• It is also believed that Ephesus is the place
  where Virgin Mary spent the last years of her
  life.

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• This statue in Ephesus represents a mixture of
  the mother goddess Cybele and Artemis, the main
  deity of the city.
• The temple of Artemis in Ephesus was one of the
  seven wonders of the world.

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• Ephesus was once a very lively port city. It had
  many courtesans, servants of Aphrodite, who wrote
  follow me under their sandals to attract
  customers.
• This footprint at the site of the ancient port
  is accompanied by the address of a brothel.

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• Zeugma was another Greco-Roman city. It had a
  twisted fate after remaining safe for centuries
  underground, this city was actually destroyed two
  years ago. The mysterious woman in the mosaic is
  supposed to represent Gaia, the Earth-goddess.

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SELJUKS(1071 to 1275)

• The turks of the Oguz first converted to Islam
  during 10th century, when they conquered Iran and
  defeated the Gaznevidz. Tugrul Beys conquest of
  Isfahan and Baghdad between 1050 and 1055 ensured
  their dominance in the Islamic world.
• On his death, the title of Chieftain if the
  Seljuks was assumed by his nephew Alpaslan, who
  was responsible for defeating the Byzantine army
  at the battle of Malazgirt in 1071. This marked
  the beginning of the Turkish migration to
  Anatolia.

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• One of the many examples of beautiful Seljuk
  architecture in Konya (right) home of also the
  great mystic Sufi Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi
  (1207-1273) gtgtwhirling dervishes

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OTTOMAN EMPIRE

• Transforming their small principality into a
  global empire sprawling over three continents,
  the Ottomans left an impressive historical
  heritage that lasted 600 years.

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• 16th century Ottoman Miniature