Antonia (Present Day Turkey)

 ANATOLIA
Anatolian Neolithic Goddess
(9000-5000 BCE)

which once covered much of modern Turkey
& extended eastward into the steppes

Know also as “the land of the rising sun” . Antonia (On the Western side of Turkey) is where the 7 churches were, in Book of Revelation, Chapter 1-3. In the Kunyan Valley are the ruins of what is believed to be the oldest suburban city in the world, dating about 6,500 B.C.  . This of coarse is before Adam and Eve; they were created about 4000 B.C. , dates are funny things to deal with.

Turkey is an independent republic occupying a region, partly in Europe and partly in Asia, that has played a major role in world history as a bridge connecting East and West. European Turkey, known as eastern THRACE, is bounded on the north by the BLACK SEA and Bulgaria and on the west by the AEGEAN SEA and Greece. It is separated from Asian Turkey (ANATOLIA or Asia Minor) by the BOSPORUS, the Sea of MARMARA, and the DARDANELLES Strait. Anatolia is bounded on the north by the Black Sea; on the east by Georgia, Armenia, and Iran; on the south by Iraq, Syria, and the Mediterranean Sea; and on the west by the Aegean Sea.

Turkey is one of the more developed Middle Eastern countries, and industrialization is in progress. Tourism, stimulated by the fine climate and the abundance of historic sites, such as TROY, PERGAMUM, and EPHESUS, is beginning to gain importance. Modern Turkey was founded on Oct. 29, 1923, as the successor of the Ottoman Empire.

ARCHAEOLOGY
Archaeological Neolithic Sites near Konya in Central Anatolia

account of 27 excavation sites near Konya in Central Anatolia, including the famous Çatalhöyük East, one of the largest Neolithic sites in the Konya Plain.
 

in the Catal Huyuk region:
There are many communities with an interest in Catalhoyuk. These include those seeking the origins of kilims, or those that wish to emphasise links between Anatolia and Europe. One of the most active groups is formed by those who believe the site is important in the emergence of the Goddess.

How can we learn about the religious impulse of preliterate cultures? One way is to allow the images made in that culture to speak. The wall paintings at Çatalhöyük appear to describe mythic stories, and religious practices of the people who settled in that area, and have tantalized me from my first viewing of them. Not only do these paintings offer clues to the rituals associated with hunting at Çatalhöyük, but they also suggest that myth-making may extend back at least 8,000 years.

The first major civilization in Anatolia, or Asia Minor, was that of the Hittites, about 1900 to 1200 bc, which originated in the central plateau. It was conquered by invaders known as the Sea Peoples, who swept over Asia Minor and Syria shortly after 1200 bc. The destruction of the western Anatolian city of Troy, an event celebrated in ancient Greek legends, probably occurred during these invasions.

One group of the Sea Peoples, the Phrygians, established a kingdom that became the dominant Anatolian power in the 9th and 8th centuries bc (see Phrygia). During this period the Greeks founded Miletus, Ephesus, and Priene and a number of other cities in Ionia, an area along the Aegean coast. About 700 bc the Phrygian kingdom was overrun and destroyed by the Cimmerians, a nomadic people who thereafter lived in western Asia Minor. In the 7th century bc the Lydians also appeared near the Aegean coast, where they founded a kingdom, the capital of which was Sardis. It was overthrown by the Persians under Cyrus the Great in 546 bc.

From the mid-6th century to 333 bc most of Asia Minor, including Anatolia, belonged to the Persian Empire, although the Greek cities frequently enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy. In the 4th century bc Persian power declined, and after 333 bc it was supplanted by the Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great. In the 2nd and 1st centuries bc, Asia Minor was gradually conquered by the Romans.

After the division of the Roman Empire in the 4th century ad, Asia Minor became part of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine Empire, the capital of which was Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), or Byzantium, located on the European side of the Bosporus, just across from the west coast of Anatolia. During the 11th century Asia Minor was invaded by nomadic Seljuk Turks. In 1071 they routed the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert; during the 12th century they ravaged much of eastern and central Anatolia. Although at this time the primary objective of the Seljuks was not to attack the Byzantines but to eliminate the threat of heterodox Shia Islam posed by the Fatimids of Egypt, some members of the Seljuk dynasty saw an opportunity to win a realm of their own. They established the sultanate of Rum (with its capital at Konya), which ruled central Anatolia in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Most of the nomads who had made the initial Seljuk victories possible were soon pushed to the west of Anatolia, where frontier colonies were maintained against the last Byzantine defenses. Although the sultanate of Rum imitated the Seljuk Empire of Baghdad, the presence within its boundaries of large numbers of Christians and its superimposition of Islam on top of a living Christian tradition produced a milieu considerably different from that of other Islamic states. It provided the basis for the unique Ottoman systems of government and society that began to emerge in the 14th century.

The Seljuks of Baghdad and Konya were soon overwhelmed by the invasion of the Mongols under Genghis Khan, culminating in the capture and sack of Baghdad in 1258. In Anatolia, the Turkish nomads used the resulting anarchy to form a series of principalities, nominally under the suzerainty of Rum, which in turn was dominated by the Mongols. These principalities maintained themselves through their raids against one another and against the last Byzantine nobles, who held out in western Anatolia.

ANCIENT ANATOLIA
Anatolia is the Asiatic portion of contemporary Turkey, extending from the Bosporus and Aegean coast eastward to the borders of the Soviet Union, Iran, and Iraq. The Greeks and Romans called western Anatolia "Asia." Later the name "Asia Minor," or "Little Asia," was used to distinguish Anatolia from the land mass of the greater Asian continent.

Already in late prehistoric times, occupation by cave dwellers in various subregions set the stage for Anatolia's emergence as a center of the agricultural revolution identified with the NEOLITHIC PERIOD. Villages and towns of this era appear at Siirt, Diyarbaker, and Urfa (southeastern Anatolia); Tarsus and Mersin in the Cicilian Plain; the Amuq Plain; at CATAL HUYUK (southeast of Konya); Hacilar (southwestern Anatolia); and Suberde (southwest of Konya). The 13-ha (32-acre) site at Catal Huyuk (c. 7000-5600 BC) has produced outstanding artifacts revealing it as a metalworking, specialized-craft, and religious center. Individual city-states abound during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze ages (3d to early 2d millennium BC). Between 1940 and 1780 BC, Assyrian merchants from Mesopotamia peacefully established a score of trading colonies in central and eastern Anatolian cities, thereby drawing the region into wider politico-economic focus.

The Hittites

Enduring political unification of Anatolia was achieved by the HITTITES, an Indo-European confederation that subdued the kingdoms of the central plateau about 1750 BC. They established the Old Hittite Kingdom, eventually ruling from BOGAZKOY (Hattusa). The confederation, whose chief members were Luwians, Palaites, and Neshites, entered Anatolia from Europe well before 2000 BC. For the first century and a half, the Old Hittite Kingdom was internally strong and militarily secure. Under Hattusilis I (fl. c. 1560 BC) the Hittite kingdom began to expand into northwest Syria. His adopted son, Mursilis I (fl. c. 1620 BC), raided down the Euphrates Valley and defeated Babylon (c. 1600 BC). Thereafter the kingdom struggled under a series of internal coups and royal assassinations until stability was reestablished by Telepinus I (c. 1525 BC). About 70 years later came the second major phase of Hittite political and military power.

The Hittite Empire period was inaugurated by Tudhaliyas II (fl. c. 1460 BC), but its chief architect was Suppiluliumas I (r. c. 1380-1346 BC), who reconquered much of central Anatolia and dominated Syria and the state of Mitanni in eastern Anatolia. Hittite successes made them a major player in the international intrigues of the day and brought them into deadly rivalry with the Egyptian empire to the south for control of Syria and Palestine. A major battle between the Hittites under Muwattalis (r. c. 1315-1296 BC) and the Egyptian king Rameses II was fought at Kadesh on the Orontes River c. 1300 BC, victory going to the Hittites. A peace treaty between the two powers was concluded between RAMESES II and Hattusilis III (r. c. 1289-1265). Thereafter, serious disruptions occurred in Anatolia, and the Hittite vassals and allies in the west attempted to gain independence. Finally, invasions of SEA PEOPLES from the Aegean and attacks by mountainous Gashga peoples destroyed Hittite power in Anatolia (c. 1200 BC).

Political Fragmentation

After the Hittite state's collapse, Anatolia had no political centrality or cohesion for nearly half a millennium. Archaeological evidence suggests the reestablishment of small principalities in the area. Textual evidence is sparse. Assyrian records recount an invasion (c. 1160) of Assyria's western borders by a large force of "Mushki," perhaps ancestors of the later Phrygians. In reaction, Assyrian armies sought first to move into southeastern Anatolia, and thereafter beyond the Euphrates, where they encountered the Neo-Hittite (Syro-Hittite) kingdoms, some 16 of which occupied the region between the Taurus Mountains and the Euphrates. Monuments from these states reveal a dialect written in "Hittite hieroglyphics," which suggests a clear cultural and population connection with Hittite Anatolia. Incursions of Aramaen nomads into Syria, and inevitable Assyrian reaction to these, spelled the demise of the Syro-Hittite kingdoms as independent states by the 8th century BC.

In mountainous eastern Anatolia the state of URARTU, in its turn, was defeated by the Syrians in 743 BC. In western Anatolia, Phrygians had arrived from southeastern Europe perhaps earlier than the Trojan War (c. 1190 BC). By the 8th century BC they had created a state (PHRYGIA) with its capital at GORDION, southwest of modern Ankara. On Anatolia's western coast, Lycians, Carians, and Mysians, probably descendants of peoples known to the classical Hittites, inhabited defined areas. By the 6th century BC, LYDIA had emerged as the region's dominant state. The fall of Assyria in 612 BC, and of Babylon in 539 BC, left the field open to the Persians who, after Cyrus the Great's victory over CROESUS of Lydia in 546 BC, incorporated Anatolia into their empire.

After the Persians crushed rebellious Ionian (Greek) cities in western Anatolia (494 BC), they launched two unsuccessful invasions of Greece. During the 5th and 4th centuries BC, Persia meddled in Greek affairs from its bases in Anatolia. The rise of PHILIP II of Macedonia and his son, ALEXANDER THE GREAT, (mid-4th century BC), initiated a victorious Pan-Hellenic crusade that destroyed the Persian Empire. After Alexander's death a number of independent states emerged in Anatolia--among them BITHYNIA, CAPPADOCIA, PERGAMUM, and PONTUS--all of which were eventually absorbed by the Roman Empire in the 1st century BC. Out of Pergamum, the Romans formed the province of Asia, which included LYCIA, Caria, Mysia, and Phrygia. For the later history of the area, see BYZANTINE EMPIRE, SELJUKS, OTTOMAN EMPIRE, and TURKEY.

BYZANTINE EMPIRE

The Byzantine Empire is the name given to the continuation of the Roman Empire, which--converted to Christianity and using Greek as its principal language--flourished in the eastern Mediterranean area for more than 1,000 years until its fall in 1453. The name Byzantine is derived from BYZANTIUM, the city which CONSTANTINE I made his new capital and renamed Constantinople (now ISTANBUL, Turkey). The three major periods of Byzantine history--Early, Middle, and Late--are characterized by drastic changes in internal organization.

EARLY PERIOD

The Early Byzantine period (324-610) was highlighted by Constantine's conversion to Christianity and the foundation of Constantinople, Theodosius I's final division of the empire into eastern and western parts, and Justinian I's successful efforts to reconquer the West. The major foreign conflicts of the period were with the Persians under the SASSANIANS in the east and the Germans in the west. Constantine and his successors successfully withstood Persian attack, but the defeat and death (363) of JULIAN THE APOSTATE caused the loss of large parts of Armenia to the Persians. Conflict was renewed under JUSTINIAN I (527-65) and his successors; the Byzantines repeatedly had to buy peace, and the year 610 saw the Persians threatening to occupy the eastern provinces. German pressure (c.375) on the Rhine and Danube increased as the Huns drove the Germans westward. Early in the 5th century, the Germans occupied most of the western half of the empire; they took Italy in 476. Justinian regained North Africa and Italy, but his successors yielded northern and central Italy to the LOMBARDS.

Internally, the reforms of Constantine, who built on the major administrative changes of his predecessor DIOCLETIAN, brought an end to the previous anarchy. The person of the emperor was elevated to a semi-divine position and surrounded by Eastern-style ceremonial, to insulate him from military coups. At all levels, civil and military authorities were sharply divided, to hinder potential rebels. An elaborate and huge bureaucracy developed. Although exceptions occurred, subjects were bound to fixed social-economic positions; peasants could not leave the land, nor craftsmen their jobs. A sound currency and a money economy were restored.

Constantine's conversion to Christianity made it the most favored religion in the state; after 380 it was the sole official religion. The state, however, became deeply involved in religious disputes. Constantine was forced to confront the heresy of ARIANISM, and only THEODOSIUS I (r.379-95) was able to subdue the Arians. During the 5th and 6th centuries, NESTORIANISM and MONOPHYSITISM disturbed religious peace. The Nestorians were expelled, but efforts to suppress or reconcile the Monophysites failed.

MIDDLE PERIOD

The Middle Byzantine period (610-1081) began with the triumph of HERACLIUS over the Persians and his subsequent defeat by the Arabs. After 634, Muslim ARABS seized Palestine, Syria, and Egypt (provinces largely inhabited by Monophysites) and raided deep into Anatolia. LEO III (r. 717-41) beat them back from the gates of Constantinople, and BASIL I (r. 867-86) started a campaign of reconquest that achieved considerable success in the 10th century. Slavs and Bulgarians meantime took possession of the Balkan peninsula. BASIL II (r. 976-1025) proved himself the greatest of Byzantine conquerors in defeating Arabs and Bulgarians.

The loss of the Monophysite provinces to the Arabs ended that religious problem, but Leo III commenced a dispute about ICONOCLASM when he attacked the veneration of images (726). Many monks were among those who suffered death or other penalties at the hands of Leo's son, Constantine V (r. 741-75), when iconoclasm reached its height. The images were briefly restored under Irene (787) and finally under Michael III in 843. The iconoclast rulers exacerbated relations with the papacy. Disputes over theological formulas, religious usages, and territorial jurisdiction led to a schism (867-870) under Patriarch PHOTIUS. Increasing disagreements with the papacy culminated in the Great SCHISM between the ORTHODOX CHURCH and Roman Catholicism in 1054.

Michael III's successor, Basil, inaugurated the Macedonian period (867-1056). Laws were codified by Basil I and LEO VI, new styles of church architecture developed, and a literary renaissance occurred.

The Arab and Bulgar invasions caused a perpetual state of military emergency. In response, civil and military authority was unified in the theme system. Each army unit, or theme, was settled on a specific region (also called a theme), which was governed by its commander. Soldiers received allotments of land, and their sons apparently became free peasants. Because these free peasants, as taxpayers and soldiers, were fundamental to the survival of the state, the 10th-century emperors strove to defend them from the great landlords.

In the 11th century, this effort to save the peasants failed, and the throne became the prize in a struggle between the bureaucrats and the generals (who were great landowners). Distracted by this struggle, the emperors were unable to resist the SELJUKS, who conquered Anatolia between 1048 and 1081.

LATE PERIOD

The triumph of the soldier-emperor ALEXIUS I COMNENUS in 1081 inaugurated the Late Byzantine period. Alexius and his immediate successors beat the Seljuk Turks back from the coasts of Anatolia, but were unable to cope with aggressive western Europeans. In 1204 the Fourth CRUSADE seized and brutally sacked the capital and established the Latin Empire of Constantinople, while refugee Byzantines created an empire at Nicaea, the despotate of Epirus and the Empire of Trebizond (Trabzon). In 1261 the ruler of Nicaea, MICHAEL VIII PALAEOLOGUS, regained Constantinople. The refounded Byzantine Empire had to face threats from Westerners and from Turks. Gradually reduced in area, it finally succumbed in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks, who made Constantinople the capital of the OTTOMAN EMPIRE. In this final period, the landed aristocracy dominated all provincial and central administrative positions of the Byzantine Empire. The peasantry was reduced to a servile status. The army consisted of mercenaries and a "feudal" levy based on government properties awarded to great landlords in return for military service. Venetian, Pisan, and Genoese merchants controlled Byzantine commerce. The emperors of the Palaeologan dynasty repeatedly tried to reunify the Orthodox and Catholic churches in return for Western aid against the Turks, but this effort proved futile.

The Byzantine Empire is notable for its ability to revive in times of disaster (as is shown in the cases of Heraclius, Leo III, Basil I, Alexius I, and Michael VIII), for its vigorous Greek culture, and for its outstanding Christian art and architecture. C. M. Brand

SELJUKS {sel'-juhks}

The Seljuks were a group of nomadic Turkish warrior leaders from Central Asia who established themselves in the Middle East during the 11th century as guardians of the declining ABBASID caliphate, and after 1055 founded the Great Seljuk sultanate, an empire centered in Baghdad and including Iran, Iraq, and Syria. They helped to prevent the FATIMIDS of Egypt from making Shiite Islam dominant throughout the Middle East and, in the 12th century, blocked inland expansion by the Crusader states on the Syrian coast. Their defeat of the Byzantines at the Battle of MANZIKERT (1071) opened the way for the Turkish occupation of Anatolia.

Seljuk power was at its zenith during the reigns of sultans ALP-ARSLAN (1063-72) and MALIK SHAH (1072-92), who with their vizier NIZAM AL-MULK, revived Sunnite Islamic administrative and religious institutions. They developed armies of slaves (MAMELUKES) to replace the nomad warriors, as well as an elaborate bureaucratic hierarchy that provided the foundation for governmental administration in the Middle East until modern times. The Seljuks revived and reinvigorated the classical Islamic educational system, developing universities (madrasahs) to train bureaucrats and religious officials.

After Malik Shah's death, a decline in the quality of dynastic leadership and division of their rule among military commanders and provincial regents (atabegs) weakened the power of the Great Seljuks. The last of the line died in battle against the KHWARIZM-SHAHS in 1194.

A branch of the Seljuks established their own state in Anatolia (the sultanate of Konya or Rum, survived until it was conquered by the Mongols in 1243.

OTTOMAN EMPIRE

The Ottoman Empire was a Muslim Turkish state that encompassed Anatolia, southeastern Europe, and the Arab Middle East and North Africa from the 14th to the early 20th century. It succeeded both the BYZANTINE EMPIRE, whose capital, Constantinople (modern ISTANBUL), it made its own in 1453, and the Arab CALIPHATE, whose mantle of descent from Muhammad it claimed after conquest of Egypt in 1517. The Ottoman Empire was finally broken up at the end of World War I, when its heartland of Anatolia became the Republic of TURKEY.

EXPANSION

The Ottoman Turks were descendants of Turkoman nomads who entered Anatolia in the 11th century as mercenary soldiers of the SELJUKS. At the end of the 13th century, OSMAN I (from whom the name Ottoman is derived) asserted the independence of his small principality in north-western Anatolia, which adjoined the decadent Byzantine Empire. Within a century his dynasty had extended its domains into an empire stretching from the Danube to the Euphrates. In Bosnia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia the conquered Christian princes were restored to their lands as vassals, while the subjects were left free to follow their own religions in return for payment of a special head tax.

The empire was temporarily disrupted by the invasion of the Tatar conqueror TIMUR, who defeated and captured the Ottoman sultan BAYEZID I at the Battle of Ankara (1402). However, Mehmed I (1389?-1421), the Restorer, succeeded in reuniting much of the empire, and it was reconstituted by MURAD II and MEHMED II. In 1453, Mehmed II conquered Constantinople, the last Byzantine stronghold. Both sultans developed the devshirme system of recruiting young Christians for conversion to Islam and service in the Ottoman army and administration; the Christians in the army were organized into the elite infantry corps called the JANISSARIES.

The empire reached its peak in the 16th century. Sultan SELIM I (r. 1512-20) conquered Egypt and Syria, gained control of the Arabian Peninsula, and beat back the Safavid rulers of Iran at the Battle of Caldiran (1514). He was succeeded by SULEIMAN I (the Magnificent, r. 1520-66), who took Iraq, Hungary, and Albania and established Ottoman naval supremacy in the Mediterranean. Suleiman codified and institutionalized the classic structure of the Ottoman state and society, making his dominions into one of the great powers of Europe.








 

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