1.
Nicaea
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The ancient city is located within the modern Turkish city of İznik, and is situated in a fertile basin at the eastern end of Lake Ascanius, bounded by ranges of hills to the north and south. It is situated with its west wall rising from the lake itself, the lake is large enough that it could not be blockaded from the land easily, and the city was large enough to make any attempt to reach the harbour from shore-based siege weapons very difficult. The ancient city is surrounded on all sides by 5 kilometres of walls about 10 metres high and these are in turn surrounded by a double ditch on the land portions, and also included over 100 towers in various locations. Large gates on the three sides of the walls provided the only entrance to the city. Today the walls have been pierced in places for roads. The later version however was not widespread even in Antiquity, Antigonus is also known to have established Bottiaean soldiers in the vicinity, lending credence to the tradition about the citys founding by Bottiaeans. Following Antigonus defeat and death at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, the city was captured by Lysimachus, who renamed it Nicaea, in tribute to his wife Nicaea, who had recently died. Sometime before 280 BC, the city came under the control of the dynasty of the kings of Bithynia. This marks the beginning of its rise to prominence as a seat of the royal court, the two cities dispute over which one was the pre-eminent city of Bithynia continued for centuries, and the 38th oration of Dio Chrysostom was expressly composed to settle the dispute. Along with the rest of Bithynia, Nicaea came under the rule of the Roman Republic in 72 BC. The geographer Strabo described the city as built in the typical Hellenistic fashion with great regularity, in the form of a square, measuring 16 stadia in circumference, i. e. approx. This monument stood in the gymnasium, which was destroyed by fire but was restored with increased magnificence by Pliny the Younger, in his writings Pliny makes frequent mention of Nicaea and its public buildings. Emperor Hadrian visited the city in 123 AD after it had been damaged by an earthquake. The new city was enclosed by a wall of some 5 kilometres in length. Reconstruction was not completed until the 3rd century, and the new set of walls failed to save Nicaea from being sacked by the Goths in 258 AD, by the 4th century, Nicaea was a large and prosperous city, and a major military and administrative centre. Emperor Constantine the Great convened the First Ecumenical Council there, the city remained important in the 4th century, seeing the proclamation of Emperor Valens and the failed rebellion of Procopius. During the same period, the See of Nicaea became independent of Nicomedia and was raised to the status of a metropolitan bishopric, many of its grand civic buildings began to fall into ruin, and had to be restored in the 6th century by Emperor Justinian I. Nicaea became the capital of the Opsician Theme in the 8th century and remained a center of administration, a Jewish community is attested in the city in the 10th century
2.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
3.
Justice and Development Party (Turkey)
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The Justice and Development Party, abbreviated AKP in Turkish, is a conservative political party in Turkey. Developed from the tradition of moderate Islamism, the party is the largest in Turkey, the party held a majority of seats for 13 years, but lost it in June 2015, only to regain it in the snap election of November 2015. Its electoral success has been mirrored in the three elections held since the partys establishment, coming first in 2004,2009 and 2014 respectively. The current party leader Binali Yıldırım is the Prime Minister of Turkey, the party has for a long time been supported by the Cemaat Movement of exiled Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, whose influence in the judiciary has helped to weaken the opposition against the AKP. Having been an observer in the center-right European Peoples Party since 2005, it left to join the eurosceptic Alliance of Conservatives. Since then, the party has brought about tighter regulations on use, abortion and alcohol consumption, having temporarily blocked access to Twitter. Especially after the government corruption scandal involving several AKP ministers in 2013, the AKP favours a strong centralized leadership, having long advocated a presidential system of government and significantly reduced the number of elected local government positions in 2013. The AK Party was established by a range of politicians of various political parties. The core of the party was formed from the reformist faction of the Islamist Virtue Party, including such as Abdullah Gül. A second founding group consisted of members of the social conservative Motherland Party who had close to Turgut Özal, such as Cemil Çiçek. Some members of the True Path Party, such as Hüseyin Çelik and Köksal Toptan, some members, such as Kürşad Tüzmen had nationalist or Ertuğrul Günay, had center-left backgrounds while representatives of the nascent Muslim left current were largely excluded. In addition a number of people joined a political party for the first time, such as Ali Babacan, Selma Aliye Kavaf, Egemen Bağış. All of these people joined Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to found the new party, although the party is described as an Islamist party in some media, party officials reject those claims. These characterizations do not reflect the truth, and they sadden us, Çelik added, The AK Party is a conservative democratic party. The AK Partys conservatism is limited to moral and social issues, also in a separate speech made in 2005, Prime Minister Erdoğan stated, We are not an Islamic party, and we also refuse labels such as Muslim-democrat. Erdoğan went on to say that the AK Partys agenda is limited to conservative democracy, however, the partys leadership has also rejected this label. In 2005, the party was granted membership in the European Peoples Party. In November 2013, the party left the EPP to join the Alliance of European Conservatives
4.
Town
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A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size definition for what constitutes a town varies considerably in different parts of the world, the word town shares an origin with the German word Zaun, the Dutch word tuin, and the Old Norse tun. The German word Zaun comes closest to the meaning of the word. An early borrowing from Celtic *dunom, in English and Dutch, the meaning of the word took on the sense of the space which these fences enclosed. In England, a town was a community that could not afford or was not allowed to build walls or other larger fortifications. In the Netherlands, this space was a garden, more specifically those of the wealthy, in Old Norse tun means a place between farmhouses, and is still used in a similar meaning in modern Norwegian. If there was any distinction between toun and burgh as claimed by some, it did not last in practice as burghs, for example, Edina Burgh or Edinburgh was built around a fort and eventually came to have a defensive wall. In some cases, town is a name for city or village. Sometimes, the town is short for township. A places population size is not a determinant of urban character. In many areas of the world, as in India at least until recent times, in the United Kingdom, there are historical cities that are far smaller than the larger towns. Some forms of settlement, such as temporary mining locations, may be clearly non-rural. Towns often exist as governmental units, with legally defined borders. In the United States these are referred to as incorporated towns, in other cases the town lacks its own governance and is said to be unincorporated. Note that the existence of a town may be legally set forth through other means. In the case of planned communities, the town exists legally in the form of covenants on the properties within the town. Australian geographer Thomas Griffith Taylor proposed a classification of towns based on their age, although there is no official use of the term for any settlement. In Albanian qytezë means small city or new city, while in ancient times small residential center within the walls of a castle
5.
Istanbul
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Istanbul, historically known as Constantinople and Byzantium, is the most populous city in Turkey and the countrys economic, cultural, and historic center. Istanbul is a city in Eurasia, straddling the Bosphorus strait between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. Its commercial and historical center lies on the European side and about a third of its population lives on the Asian side, the city is the administrative center of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, both hosting a population of around 14.7 million residents. Istanbul is one of the worlds most populous cities and ranks as the worlds 7th-largest city proper, founded under the name of Byzantion on the Sarayburnu promontory around 660 BCE, the city developed to become one of the most significant in history. After its reestablishment as Constantinople in 330 CE, it served as a capital for almost 16 centuries, during the Roman and Byzantine, the Latin. Overlooked for the new capital Ankara during the period, the city has since regained much of its prominence. The population of the city has increased tenfold since the 1950s, as migrants from across Anatolia have moved in, arts, music, film, and cultural festivals were established at the end of the 20th century and continue to be hosted by the city today. Infrastructure improvements have produced a complex transportation network, considered a global city, Istanbul has one of the fastest-growing metropolitan economies in the world. It hosts the headquarters of many Turkish companies and media outlets and accounts for more than a quarter of the gross domestic product. Hoping to capitalize on its revitalization and rapid expansion, Istanbul has bid for the Summer Olympics five times in twenty years, the first known name of the city is Byzantium, the name given to it at its foundation by Megarean colonists around 660 BCE. The name is thought to be derived from a personal name, ancient Greek tradition refers to a legendary king of that name as the leader of the Greek colonists. Modern scholars have hypothesized that the name of Byzas was of local Thracian or Illyrian origin. He also attempted to promote the name Nova Roma and its Greek version Νέα Ῥώμη Nea Romē, the use of Constantinople to refer to the city during the Ottoman period is now considered politically incorrect, even if not historically inaccurate, by Turks. By the 19th century, the city had acquired other names used by foreigners or Turks. Europeans used Constantinople to refer to the whole of the city, pera was used to describe the area between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, but Turks also used the name Beyoğlu. The name İstanbul is commonly held to derive from the Medieval Greek phrase εἰς τὴν Πόλιν and this reflected its status as the only major city in the vicinity. The importance of Constantinople in the Ottoman world was reflected by its Ottoman name Der Saadet meaning the gate to Prosperity in Ottoman. An alternative view is that the name evolved directly from the name Constantinople, with the first, a Turkish folk etymology traces the name to Islam bol plenty of Islam because the city was called Islambol or Islambul as the capital of the Islamic Ottoman Empire
6.
Bursa
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Bursa is a large city in Turkey, located in northwestern Anatolia, within the Marmara Region. It is the fourth most populous city in Turkey and one of the most industrialized metropolitan centres in the country, the city is also the administrative centre of Bursa Province. Bursa was the first major and second overall capital of the Ottoman State between 1335 and 1363, the ski resort of Mount Uludağ towers over it. The mountain was called the Mysian Olympus by the Romans who lived there before, Bursa has rather orderly urban growth and borders a fertile plain. The mausoleums of the early Ottoman sultans are located in Bursa, Bursa also has thermal baths and several museums, including a museum of archaeology. The shadow play characters Karagöz and Hacivat are based on historic personalities who lived and died in Bursa, Bursa is also home to some of the most famous Turkish dishes such as İskender kebap, specially candied marron glacés, peaches and Turkish Delight. Bursa houses the Uludağ University, and its population can claim one of the highest overall levels of education in Turkey, the historic towns of İznik, Mudanya and Zeytinbağı are all situated in Bursa Province. In 2015, Bursa had a population of 2,340,000, the earliest known human settlement near Bursas current location was at Ilıpınar Höyüğü around 5200 BC. It was followed by the ancient Greek city of Cius, which Philip V of Macedon granted to Prusias I, Prusias rebuilt the city and renamed it Prusa. After 128 years of Bithynian rule, Nicomedes IV, the last King of Bithynia, an early Roman Treasure was found in the vicinity of Bursa in the early 20th century. Composed of a womans silver toilet articles, it is now in the British Museum, Bursa became the first major capital city of the early Ottoman Empire following its capture from the Byzantines in 1326. As a result, the city witnessed a considerable amount of growth throughout the 14th century. After conquering Edirne in East Thrace, the Ottomans turned it into the new city in 1363. The Ottoman sultan Bayezid I built the Bayezid Külliyesi in Bursa between 1390 and 1395 and the Ulu Cami between 1396 and 1400, Bursa remained to be the most important administrative and commercial centre in the empire until Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453. The population of Bursa was 45,000 in 1487, during the Ottoman period, Bursa continued to be the source of most royal silk products. Following the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, Bursa became one of the centres of the country. The economic development of the city was followed by population growth, the most recent arrival of Balkan Turks took place in the 1940s until the 1990s, when the communist regime in Bulgaria expelled approximately 150,000 Bulgarian Turks to Turkey. About one-third of these 150,000 Bulgarian Turkish refugees eventually settled in Bursa, Bursa is settled on the northwestern slopes of Mount Uludağ in the southern Marmara Region
7.
Fritware
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Fritware, also known as stone-paste, is a type of pottery in which frit is added to clay to reduce its fusion temperature. The formula may include quartz or other siliceous material, an organic compound such as gum or glue may be added for binding. The resulting mixture can be fired at a lower temperature than clay alone, a glaze is then applied on the surface to harden the object. The manufacture of fritware began in Iraq in the 9th century, between the 10th and the 12th centuries the main centre of manufacture moved to Egypt, but the technique then spread throughout the Middle-East. Fritware was invented to give a white body, which, combined with tin-glazing of the surface. True porcelain was not manufactured in the Islamic world until modern times, Frit was also a significant component in some early European porcelains. In the 13th century the town of Kashan in Iran was an important centre for the production of fritware, abūl-Qāsim, who came from a family of tilemakers in the city, wrote a treatise in 1301 on precious stones that included a chapter on the manufacture of fritware. His recipe specified a fritware body containing a mixture of 10 parts silica to 1 part glass frit and 1 part clay, the frit was prepared by mixing powdered quartz with soda which acted as a flux. The mixture was heated in a kiln. This type of pottery has also referred to as stonepaste. A ninth-century corpus of proto-stonepaste from Baghdad has relict glass fragments in its fabric, the glass is alkali-lime-lead-silica and, when the paste was fired or cooled, wollastonite and diopside crystals formed within the glass fragments. The lack of inclusions of crushed pottery suggests these fragments did not come from a glaze, Iznik pottery was produced in Ottoman Turkey beginning in the last quarter of 15th century AD. It consists of a body, slip, and glaze, where the body, the frits in both cases are unusual in that they contain lead oxide as well as soda, the lead oxide would help reduce the thermal expansion coefficient of the ceramic. Microscopic analysis reveals that the material that has been labeled frit is interstitial glass which serves to connect the quartz particles, the glass was added as frit and that the interstitial glass formed on firing. Egyptian faience Chinese influences on Islamic pottery Allan, J. W. Abūl-Qāsims treatise on ceramics, Iran,11, 111–120, atasoy, Nurhan, Raby, Julian, Iznik, The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London, Alexandra Press, ISBN 978-1-85669-054-6. The beginnings of Islamic stonepaste technology, Archaeometry,36, 77–91, Iznik pottery, an investigation of the methods of production, Archaeometry,31, 115–132, doi,10. 1111/j. 1475-4754.1989. tb01008. x. The petrology of Syrian stonepaste ceramics, the view from Aleppo, the technological development of stonepaste ceramics from the Islamic Middle East. History of World Ceramics Technology of Frit Making in Iznik, okyar F. Euro Ceramics VIII, Part 3
8.
Orhan
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Orhan Gazi was the second bey of the nascent Ottoman Sultanate from 1323/4 to 1362. He was born in Söğüt, as the son of Osman Gazi, in the early stages of his reign, Orhan focused his energies on conquering most of northwestern Anatolia. The majority of areas were under Byzantine rule and he won his first battle, at Pelekanon. Orhan also occupied the lands of the Karasids of Balıkesir and the Ahis of Ankara, a series of civil wars surrounding the ascension of the nine-year-old emperor John V Palaiologos benefited Orhan greatly. In the Byzantine civil war of 1352–1357, Kantakouzenos used Ottoman forces against John V himself, a major earthquake devastated Gallipoli two years later and Orhans son Süleyman Pasha occupied the town, giving the Ottomans a strong bridgehead into mainland Europe. Orhan was born around 1281, he was the first son of Osman I, Orhans grandfather, Ertugrul Gazi named his grandson after a famous Orhan Alp. Early childhood and adulthood of Orhan are unknown but he grown a very close to his father, in some historical articles, when Orhan was 20 year old, his father sent him in small Ottoman province named Nakihir, but Orhan returned to Ottoman capital Sogut in 1309. Sultan Osman Gazi died in either 1323 or 1324, and Orhan succeeded him, according to Ottoman tradition, when Orhan succeeded his father, he proposed to his brother, Alaeddin, that they should share the emerging empire. The latter refused on the grounds that their father had designated Orhan as sole successor, and he only accepted as his share the revenues of a single village near Bursa. Orhan then told him, Since, my brother, thou will not take the flocks, the word vizier, vezir in the Ottoman language, from Arabic wazīr, meant the bearer of a burden. Alaeddin, in accepting the office, accepted his brothers burden of power, Alaeddin, by his military legislation, may be truly said to have organized victory for the Ottoman dynasty. Orhans predecessors, Ertuğrul and Osman I, had made war at the head of the armed vassals and this army rode on horseback to their princes banner when summoned for each expedition, and were disbanded as soon as the campaign was over. Alaeddin determined to ensure any future success by forming a corps of paid infantry and these troops were called Yaya, or piyade. They were divided into tens, hundreds, and thousands with their commanders and their pay was high, and their pride soon caused their sovereign some anxiety. Orhan wished to provide a check to them, and he took counsel for this purpose with his brother Alaeddin and Kara Khalil Çandarlı, Çandarlı laid before his master and the vizier a project. Out of this arose the renowned corps of Janissaries, which was considered the scourge of the Balkans and Central Europe for a long time, Çandarlı proposed to Orhan to create an army entirely composed of the children of conquered places. Çandarlı argued that, The conquered are the responsibility of the conqueror, who is the ruler of them, of their lands, of their goods, of their wives. We have a right to do, same as what we do with our own, and the treatment which I propose is not only lawful, but benevolent
9.
Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
Turkey
Iznik travel guide from Wikivoyage
