1.
Turkish language
–
Outside of Turkey, significant smaller groups of speakers exist in Germany, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Northern Cyprus, Greece, the Caucasus, and other parts of Europe and Central Asia. Cyprus has requested that the European Union add Turkish as an official EU language, in 1928, as one of Atatürks Reforms in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, the Ottoman Turkish alphabet was replaced with a Latin alphabet. The distinctive characteristics of Turkish are vowel harmony and extensive agglutination, the basic word order of Turkish is subject–object–verb. Turkish has no classes or grammatical gender. Turkish has a strong T–V distinction and usage of honorifics, Turkish uses second-person pronouns that distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, age, courtesy or familiarity toward the addressee. The plural second-person pronoun and verb forms are used referring to a person out of respect. Turkic languages belong to the Altaic language group, the Turkic family comprises some 30 living languages spoken across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Siberia. Turkish is a member of the Oghuz group of languages, a subgroup of the Turkic language family, there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Turkish and the other Oghuz Turkic languages, including Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, and Balkan Gagauz Turkish. The earliest known Old Turkic inscriptions are the three monumental Orkhon inscriptions found in modern Mongolia, erected in honour of the prince Kul Tigin and his brother Emperor Bilge Khagan, these date back to the second Turk Kaghanate. The Seljuqs of the Oghuz Turks, in particular, brought their language, following the adoption of Islam c. Turkish literature during the Ottoman period, particularly Divan poetry, was influenced by Persian, including the adoption of poetic meters. One of the tasks of the newly established association was to initiate a reform to replace loanwords of Arabic. By banning the usage of imported words in the press, the association succeeded in removing several hundred words from the language. While most of the words introduced to the language by the TDK were newly derived from Turkic roots, owing to this sudden change in the language, older and younger people in Turkey started to differ in their vocabularies. While the generations born before the 1940s tend to use the terms of Arabic or Persian origin. The past few decades have seen the work of the TDK to coin new Turkish words to express new concepts and technologies as they enter the language. Many of these new words, particularly information technology terms, have received widespread acceptance, however, the TDK is occasionally criticized for coining words which sound contrived and artificial. Some earlier changes—such as bölem to replace fırka, political party—also failed to meet with popular approval, some words restored from Old Turkic have taken on specialized meanings, for example betik is now used to mean script in computer science
2.
Anatolian beyliks
–
Anatolian beyliks, sometimes known as Turkmen beyliks, were small Turkish principalities in Anatolia governed by Beys, the first of which were founded at the end of the 11th century. A second more extensive period of foundations took place as a result of the decline of the Seljuq Sultanate of Rûm in the half of the 13th century. One of the beyliks, the Ottomans, expanded from its capital in Bursa and completed its conquest of the other beyliks by the late 15th century, the word beylik denotes a territory under the jurisdiction of a Bey, equivalent in other European societies to a Lord. The term has a context within the 16th century Ottoman governmental institutions in the then regencies along the coastline of Tunisia and Algeria. Following the 1071 Seljuq victory over the Byzantine Empire at the Battle of Manzikert and these clans, led by beys, would receive military and financial aid from the Seljuqs in return for their services and full allegiance. Seljuq power deteriorated with the Mongol invasions from the east, the Ilkhanate commanders in Anatolia then gained strength and authority and this encouraged the beys to declare sovereignty. To maintain control of their new territory, these reestablished emirs employed Ghazi warriors from Persia, as the Byzantine empire weakened, their cities in Asia Minor could resist the assaults of the beyliks less and less, and many Turks gradually settled in the western parts of Anatolia. By 1300, Turks had reached the Aegean coastline, held momentarily two centuries before, in the beginning, the most powerful states were the Karamanids and the Germiyanids in the central area. The Beylik of Osmanoğlu Dynasty who were later to found the Ottoman Empire was situated to the northwest, around Söğüt, along the Aegean coast, from north to south, stretched Karasids, Sarukhanids, Aydinids, Menteşe and Teke principalities. The Jandarids controlled the Black Sea region around Kastamonu and Sinop, under its eponymous founder, Osman I, the Beylik of Osmanoğlu expanded at Byzantine expense south and west of the Sea of Marmara in the first decades of the 14th century. Towards the end of the 14th century, the Ottomans advanced further into Anatolia by acquiring towns, meanwhile, the Karamanids assaulted the Ottomans many times with the help of other beyliks, Mamluks, Aq Qoyunlu, Byzantines, Pontics and Hungarians, failing and losing power every time. By the close of the century, the early Ottoman leaders had conquered parts of land from Karamanids. These had a respite when their territories were restored to them after the Ottoman defeat suffered against Tamerlane in 1402 in the Battle of Ankara. But the Ottoman state quickly collected itself under Mehmed I and his son Murad II re-incorporated most of these beyliks into Ottoman territory in a space of around 25 years. The final blow for the Karamanids was struck by Mehmed II who conquered their lands, many of the former Anatolian beyliks became the basis for administrative subdivisions in the Ottoman Empire. In 1337 Alaşehir was granted autonomy under Aydınids and this lasted until the total Ottoman conquest, combined with the Seljuqs and the immigration of Turkic tribes into the Anatolian mainland the Anatolian Beyliks spread Turkish and Islamic influence in Anatolia. Unlike the Seljuqs, whose language of administration was Persian, the Anatolian emirates adopted spoken Turkish as their literary language. The Turkish language achieved widespread use in these principalities and reached its highest sophistication during the Ottoman era, in spite of their limited sources and the political climate of their era, art during the Anatolian beyliks flourished, probably building the basis for Ottoman art
3.
Battle of Manzikert
–
The Battle of Manzikert was fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Turks on August 26,1071 near Manzikert. Many of the Turks, who had been, during the 11th century, travelling westward, the brunt of the battle was borne by the professional soldiers from the eastern and western tagmata, as large numbers of mercenaries and Anatolian levies fled early and survived the battle. This led to the movement of Turks into central Anatolia—by 1080. It took three decades of internal strife before Alexius I restored stability to Byzantium and it was the first time in history a Byzantine Emperor had become the prisoner of a Muslim commander. Under Constantine IX the Byzantines first came into contact with the Seljuk Turks when they attempted to annex Ani, Constantine made a truce with the Seljuks that lasted until 1064, but they then took Ani, and in 1067 the rest of Armenia, followed by Caesarea. In 1068 Romanos IV took power, and after some speedy military reforms entrusted Manuel Comnenus to lead an expedition against the Seljuks. Manuel captured Hierapolis Bambyce in Syria, next thwarted a Turkish attack against Iconium with a counter-attack, in February 1071, Romanos sent envoys to Alp Arslan to renew the 1069 treaty, and keen to secure his northern flank against attack, Alp Arslan happily agreed. Abandoning the siege of Edessa, he led his army to attack Fatimid-held Aleppo. However, the treaty had been a deliberate distraction, Romanos now led a large army into Armenia to recover the lost fortresses before the Seljuks had time to respond. Accompanying Romanos was Andronicus Ducas, son of his rival, John Ducas, the expedition rested at Sebasteia on the river Halys, reaching Theodosiopolis in June 1071. There, some of his generals suggested continuing the march into Seljuk territory, others, including Nicephorus Bryennius, suggested they wait and fortify their position. It was decided to continue the march, Alp Arslan was already in the area, however, with allies and 30,000 cavalry from Aleppo and Mosul. Alp Arslans scouts knew exactly where Romanos was, while Romanos was completely unaware of his opponents movements and this split the forces in half, each taking about 20,000 men. Either way, Romanos army was reduced to less than half his planned 40,000 to 70,000 men, Alp Arslan summoned his army and delivered a speech by appearing in a white robe, as in an Islamic funeral shroud, in the morning of the battle. This was a message that he was ready to die in battle. Romanos was unaware of the loss of Tarchaneiotes and continued to Manzikert, which he captured on August 23. The next day some foraging parties under Bryennios discovered the Seljuk army and were forced to back to Manzikert. The Armenian general Basilakes was sent out some cavalry, as Romanos did not believe this was Alp Arslans full army
4.
Erzurum
–
Erzurum is a city in eastern Turkey. It is the largest city in, and the capital of and it is situated 1757 meters above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 361,235 in the 2000 census, Erzurum, known as The Rock in NATO code, served as NATOs southeastern-most air force post during the Cold War. The city uses the double-headed Anatolian Seljuk Eagle as its coat-of-arms, a motif that was a symbol throughout Anatolia. Erzurum has some of the finest winter sports facilities in Turkey, the city was originally known in Armenian as Karno Kaghak, meaning city of Karin, to distinguish it from the district of Karin. After the Arab conquest of Armenia, the city was known to the Arabs as Kālīkalā, during Roman times, Erzurum was named Theodosiopolis. It got its present name after its conquest by the Seljuks following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, a neighboring commercial city named Artsn was heavily sacked by the Seljuk Turks in 1048-49. Its Armenian, Syrian, and other Christian inhabitants moved to Theodosiopolis, some older sources derive the name Erzurum from the Arabic Arḍ-ar-Rūm land of the Rûm. The surroundings of Erzurum at the Urartian period presumably belonged to Diauehi, later, Erzurum existed under the Armenian name of Karin. During the reigns of the Artaxiad and Arsacid kings of Armenia, after the partition of Armenia between the Eastern Roman Empire and Sassanid Persia in 387 AD, the city passed into the hands of the Romans. They fortified the city and renamed it Theodosiopolis, after Emperor Theodosius I, emperors Anastasius I and Justinian I both refortified the city and built new defenses during their reigns. Theodosiopolis was conquered by the Umayyad general Abdallah ibn Abd al-Malik in 700/701 and it became the capital of the emirate of Ḳālīḳalā and was used as a base for raids into Byzantine territory. Though only an island of Arab power within Christian Armenian-populated territory, in 931, and again in 949, Byzantine forces led by Theophilos Kourkouas, grandfather of the future emperor John I Tzimiskes, captured Theodosiopolis. Its Arab population was expelled and the city was resettled by Greeks, Emperor Basil II rebuilt the city and its defenses in 1018 with the help of the local Armenian population. In 1071, after the battle at Manzikert, the Seljuk Turks took possession of Theodosiopolis. The Saltukids were rulers of an Anatolian beylik centered in Erzurum, melike Mama Hatun, sister of Nâsırüddin Muhammed, was the ruler between 1191 and 1200. Theodosiopolis repelled many attacks and military campaigns by the Seljuks and Georgians until 1201 when the city, erzen-Erzurum fell to the Mongol siege in 1242, and the city was looted and devastated. Then became part of the beylik, Black Sheep Turkmen, empire of Timur Lenk
5.
Oghuz Turks
–
The Oghuz, Oguz or Ghuzz Turks were a western Turkic people who spoke the Oghuz languages from the Common branch of Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in central Asia, the name Oghuz is a Common Turkic word for tribe. Byzantine sources call the Oghuz the Uzes, by the 10th century, Islamic sources were calling the Muslim, as opposed to shamanist or Christian, Oghuz the Turkmens. By the 12th century this term had passed into Byzantine usage, the Oghuz confederation migrated westward from the Jeti-su area after a conflict with the Karluk branch of Uigurs. The founders of the Ottoman Empire were descendants of the Oghuzes, in the 9th century, the Oghuzes from the Aral steppes drove Bechens from the Emba and Ural River region toward the west. In the 10th century, they inhabited the steppe of the rivers Sari-su, Turgai, a clan of this nation, the Seljuks, embraced Islam and in the 11th century entered Persia, where they founded the Great Seljuk Empire. Similarly in the 11th century, a Tengriist Oghuz clan—referred to as Uzes or Torks in the Russian chronicles—overthrew Pecheneg supremacy in the Russian steppe, the Oghuz seem to have been related to the Pechenegs, some of whom were clean-shaven and others of whom had small goatee beards. According to the book Attila and the Nomad Hordes, Like the Kimaks they set up many carved wooden funerary statues surrounded by simple stone balbal monoliths. Oghuz warriors served in almost all Islamic armies of the Middle East from the 1000s onwards, in Byzantium from the 800s, and even in Spain and Morocco. In later centuries, they adapted and applied their own traditions and institutions to the ends of the Islamic world and emerged as empire-builders with a constructive sense of statecraft. The term Oghuz was gradually supplanted among the Turks themselves by Türkmen, Turcoman, from the mid 900s on, a process which was completed by the beginning of the 1200s. The Ottoman dynasty, who took over Anatolia after the fall of the Seljuks, toward the end of the 13th century. The original homeland of the Oghuz was the Altai Mountains of Central Asia, various scholarly theories link the Xiongnu to Turkic peoples and/or the Huns. The first usage of the word Oghuz appears to have been the title of Oğuz Kağan, given in 220 BCE to the Xiongnu king Modu Shanyu, who founded the Xiongnu Empire. According to a theory with few scholarly adherents, one transliteration of Yuezhi, as Hu-chieh. However, the Yuezhi are widely believed to have spoken an Indo-European language or languages, a number of subsequent tribal confederations bore the name Oghuz, often affixed to a numeral indicating the number of united tribes included. These include references to the Sekiz-Oghuz and the Dokuz-Oghuz, the tribes of the Sekiz-Oghuz and the Dokuz-Oghuz originally occupied different areas in the vicinity of the Altai Mountains. By the time of the Orkhon inscriptions Oghuz was being applied generically to all inhabitants of the Göktürk Khaganate, within the khaganate, the Oghuz community gradually expanded, incorporating other tribes
6.
Seljuk Empire
–
The Seljuk Empire or Great Seljuk Empire was a medieval Turko-Persian Sunni Muslim empire, originating from the Qynyq branch of Oghuz Turks. The Seljuk Empire controlled a vast area stretching from the Hindu Kush to eastern Anatolia, from their homelands near the Aral sea, the Seljuks advanced first into Khorasan and then into mainland Persia before eventually conquering eastern Anatolia. The Seljuk empire was founded by Tughril Beg in 1037, Tughril was raised by his grandfather, Seljuk-Beg, who was in a high position in the Oghuz Yabgu State. Seljuk gave his name to both the Seljuk empire and the Seljuk dynasty, the Seljuks united the fractured political scene of the eastern Islamic world and played a key role in the first and second crusades. Highly Persianized in culture and language, the Seljuks also played an important role in the development of the Turko-Persian tradition, the Seljuqs were allied with the Persian Samanid shahs against the Qarakhanids. The Samanid fell to the Qarakhanids in Transoxania, however, whereafter the Ghaznavids arose, the Seljuqs became involved in this power struggle in the region before establishing their own independent base. Tughril was the grandson of Seljuq and brother of Chaghri, under whom the Seljuks wrested an empire from the Ghaznavids, initially the Seljuqs were repulsed by Mahmud and retired to Khwarezm, but Tughril and Chaghri led them to capture Merv and Nishapur. Later they repeatedly raided and traded territory with his successors across Khorasan and Balkh, in 1040 at the Battle of Dandanaqan, they decisively defeated Masud I of the Ghaznavids, forcing him to abandon most of his western territories to the Seljuqs. In 1055, Tughril captured Baghdad from the Shia Buyids under a commission from the Abbasids, arslans decisive victory at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 effectively neutralized the Byzantine resistance to the Turkish invasion of Anatolia. He authorized his Turkmen generals to carve their own out of formerly Byzantine Anatolia. Malikshāh moved the capital from Rey to Isfahan and it was during his reign that the Great Seljuk Empire reached its zenith. The Iqta military system and the Nizāmīyyah University at Baghdad were established by Nizām al-Mulk, the Abbasid Caliph titled him The Sultan of the East and West in 1087. The Seljuq power was at its zenith under Malikshāh I, the Seljuq dominion was established over the ancient Sasanian domains, in Iran and Iraq, and included Anatolia as well as parts of Central Asia and modern Afghanistan. The Seljuk rule was modelled after the organization common in Turkic and Mongol nomads. Under this organization, the member of the paramount family assigned family members portions of his domains as autonomous appanages. When Malikshāh I died in 1092, the split as his brother. Malikshāh I was succeeded in Anatolia by Kilij Arslan I, who founded the Sultanate of Rum, and in Syria by his brother Tutush I. In Persia he was succeeded by his son Mahmud I, whose reign was contested by his three brothers Barkiyaruq in Iraq, Muhammad I in Baghdad, and Ahmad Sanjar in Khorasan
7.
Alp Arslan
–
Alp Arslan, real name Muhammad bin Dawud Chaghri, was the second Sultan of the Seljuk Empire and great-grandson of Seljuk, the eponymous founder of the dynasty. As Sultan, Alp Arslan greatly expanded Seljuk territory and consolidated power, defeating rivals to his south and his victory over the Byzantines at Manzikert ushered in the Turkish settlement of Anatolia. For his military prowess and fighting skills he obtained the name Alp Arslan, Alp Arslan accompanied his uncle, Tughril Bey on campaigns in the south against the Shia Fatimids while his father, Çağrı Bey remained in Khorasan. Upon Alp Arslans return to Khorasan, he began his work in administration at his fathers suggestion, while there, his father introduced him to Nizam al-Mulk, one of the most eminent statesmen in early Muslim history and Alp Arslans future vizier. After the death of his father, Alp Arslan succeeded him as governor of Khorasan in 1059 and his uncle Tughril died in 1063 and was succeeded by Suleiman, Arslans brother. Arslan and his uncle Kutalmish both contested this succession, Arslan defeated Kutalmish for the throne and succeeded on 27 April 1064 as sultan of Great Seljuq, thus becoming sole monarch of Persia from the river Oxus to the Tigris. In consolidating his empire and subduing contending factions, Arslan was ably assisted by Nizam al-Mulk, with peace and security established in his dominions, Arslan convoked an assembly of the states and in 1066, he declared his son Malik Shah I his heir and successor. With the hope of capturing Caesarea Mazaca, the capital of Cappadocia, he placed himself at the head of the Turkish cavalry, crossed the Euphrates, along with Nizam al-Mulk, he then marched into Armenia and Georgia, which he conquered in 1064. After a siege of 25 days, the Seljuks captured Ani, the city of Armenia. The Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes, assuming command in person, met the invaders in Cilicia, in three arduous campaigns, the Turks were defeated in detail and driven across the Euphrates in 1070. The first two campaigns were conducted by the emperor himself, while the third was directed by Manuel Comnenos, during this time, Arslan gained the allegiance of Rashid al-Dawla Mahmud, the Mirdasid emir of Aleppo. In 1071 Romanos again took the field and advanced into Armenia with possibly 30,000 men, including a contingent of Cuman Turks as well as contingents of Franks and Normans, under Ursel de Baieul. Alp Arslan, who had moved his troops south to fight the Fatimids, at Manzikert, on the Murat River, north of Lake Van, the two forces waged the Battle of Manzikert. The Cuman mercenaries among the Byzantine forces immediately defected to the Turkish side, seeing this, the Western mercenaries rode off and took no part in the battle. To be exact, Romanos was betrayed by general Andronikos Doukas, son of the Caesar, Emperor Romanos IV was himself taken prisoner and conducted into the presence of Alp Arslan. After a ritual humiliation, Arslan treated him with generosity, after peace terms were agreed to, Arslan dismissed the Emperor, loaded with presents and respectfully attended by a military guard. The following conversation is said to have taken place after Romanos was brought as a prisoner before the Sultan, Alp Arslan, Romanos, Perhaps Id kill you, or exhibit you in the streets of Constantinople. Alp Arslan, My punishment is far heavier, I forgive you, and set you free
8.
Kingdom of Georgia
–
The Kingdom of Georgia, also known as the Georgian Empire, was a medieval monarchy which emerged in circa 1008 AD. It reached its Golden Age of political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV, a predominantly Christian, Georgian-speaking realm, it was the principal historical precursor of present-day Georgia. Lasting for several centuries, the fell to the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. The Kingdoms geopolitical situation further worsened after the Fall of Constantinople, as a result of these processes, by the end of the 15th century Georgia turned into an isolated, fractured Christian enclave, surrounded by hostile Turco-Iranic neighbors. The ascendancy of the Bagrationi dynasty can be traced to the 8th century, the restoration of the Georgian kingship begins in AD888, when Adarnase IV of Iberia took the title of King of Georgians. The United Kingdom of Georgia was established in 1008, in this year, Bagrat III, son of Gurgen II, became the ruler of the Kingdom of Western Georgia, including the Principalities of Imereti, Samegrelo, Abkhazeti, Guria and Svaneti. Bagrats mother was Queen Gurandukht, a daughter of George II of Abkhazia, the first decades of the 9th century saw the rise of a new Georgian state in Tao-Klarjeti. Ashot Courapalate of the family of Bagrationi liberated from the Arabs the territories of former southern Iberia. In practice, however, the region functioned as an independent country with its capital in Artanuji. The hereditary title of Curopalates was kept by the Bagrationi family, the first united Georgian monarchy was formed at the end of the 10th century when Curopalate David invaded the Earldom of Kartli-Iberia. Three years later, after the death of his uncle Theodosius the Blind, King of Egrisi-Abkhazia, in 1001 Bagrat added Tao-Klarjeti to his domain as a result of Davids death. In 1008–1010, Bagrat annexed Kakheti and Hereti, thus becoming the first king of a united Georgia in both the east and west, in 1071, the Seljuq army destroyed the united Byzantine-Armenian and Georgian forces in the Battle of Manzikert. By 1081, all of Armenia, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Syria, in Georgia, only the mountainous areas of Abkhazia, Svaneti, Racha, and Khevi–Khevsureti remained out of Seljuq control and served as a relatively safe havens for numerous refugees. The rest of the country was dominated by the conquerors who destroyed the cities and fortresses, looted the villages, in fact, by the end of the 1080s, Georgians were outnumbered in the region by the invaders. The Golden Age began with the reign of David IV, the son of George II and Queen Helena, in 1121, he decisively defeated much larger Turkish armies during the Battle of Didgori, with fleeing Seljuq Turks being run down by pursuing Georgian cavalry for several days. A huge amount of booty and prisoners were captured by Davids army, David IV made particular emphasis on removing the vestiges of unwanted eastern influences, which the Georgians considered forced, in favor of the traditional Christian and Byzantine overtones. As part of this effort he founded the Gelati Monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, David also played a personal role in reviving Georgian religious hymnography, composing the Hymns of Repentance, a sequence of eight free-verse psalms. In this emotional repentance of his sins, David sees himself as reincarnating the Biblical David, with a relationship to God
9.
Kars
–
Kars is a city in northeast Turkey and the capital of Kars Province. With a population of 73,836, it is the largest city on the Turkish side of the border with Armenia. For a brief period of time, it served as the capital of the medieval Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia. Its significance increased in the 19th century, when Kars was contested between the Ottoman and Russian empires, with the latter gaining control of the city as a result of the 1877-78 war, during the Turkish–Armenian War in late 1920, Turkish revolutionaries captured Kars for the last time. As Chorzene, the town appears in Roman historiography as part of ancient Armenia, the Turkish etymology offered by M. Fahrettin Kırzıoğlu, has been dismissed as unsustainable by scholars. Little is known of the history of Kars beyond the fact that it had its own dynasty of Armenian rulers and was the capital of a region known as Vanand. Medieval Armenian historians referred to the city by a variety of names, including Karuts Kaghak, Karuts Berd, Amrotsn Karuts, at some point in the ninth century it became part of the territory of the Armenian Bagratunis. Kars was the capital of Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia between 928 and 961, during this period the towns cathedral, later known as the Church of the Holy Apostles, was built. In 963, shortly after the Bagratuni seat was transferred to Ani, Kars became the capital of an independent kingdom. In 1064, just after the capture of Ani by Alp Arslan, in 1065 Gagik-Abas ceded his kingdom to the Byzantine Empire, but soon after Kars was taken by the Seljuk Turks. The Kars emirate was a vassal of the Saltukids in Erzurum, thus, it was only in 1206 that Zakare of the Zakarids-Mkhargrzeli succeeded in capturing Kars, joining it to their fiefdom of Ani. In 1387 the city surrendered to Timur and its fortifications were damaged, anatolian beyliks followed for some time after that, until it firstly fell into the hands of the Kara Koyunlu and subsequent Ak Koyunlu. After the Ak Koyunlu, as it went naturally for almost all their former territories, following the Peace of Amasya of 1555 that followed through the Ottoman-Safavid War of 1533-1555, the city was declared neutral, and its existing fortress was destroyed. In 1585, during the Ottoman-Safavid War of 1579-1590, the Ottomans took the city alongside Tabriz, on June 8,1604, during the next bout of hostilities between the two archrivals, the Ottoman-Safavid War of 1603-1618, Safavid ruler Abbas I retook the city from the Ottomans. The fortifications of the city were rebuilt by the Ottoman Sultan Murad III and were enough to withstand a siege by Nader Shah of Persia. It became the head of a sanjak in the Ottoman Erzurum Vilayet, in Augsust 1745, a huge Ottoman army was routed at Kars by Nader Shah during the Ottoman-Persian War of 1743-1746. As a result, the Turks fled westwards, raiding their own lands as they went, in 1807 Kars successfully resisted an attack by the Russian Empire. After another Russian siege in 1828 the city was surrendered by the Ottomans on June 23,1828 to the Russian general Count Ivan Paskevich,11,000 men becoming prisoners of war
10.
Byzantine Empire
–
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
11.
George III of Georgia
–
George III, of the Bagrationi dynasty, was the King of Georgia from 1156 to 1184. George was the father of Queen Tamar the Great and he succeeded on his father Demetrius Is death in 1156. He changed his fathers defensive policy into an aggressive one. With his ascent to the throne, George III launched a campaign against the Seljuk sultanate of Ahlat in 1156. George took and annexed the Armenian cities of Ani and Dvin in 1161–1162, however, the Seljuk counterattacks made the King to cede Ani to a Muslim ruler on the terms of vassalage. The city was incorporated into the Georgian Kingdom in 1173. Throughout this period, the Georgian army was swelling with Armenian volunteers, in 1167, he marched to defend his vassal Shah Aghsartan of Shirvan against the Khazar and Kipchak assaults and strengthened the Georgian dominance in the area. In 1177, the nobles of the realm rose against the king and declared Prince Demna a true, being a son of George IIIs late elder brother David V, Demna was considered by many as a legitimate pretender to the Georgian throne. Approximately 30,000 rebel forces under Demnas father-in-law Ioane Orbeli strengthened their positions at the citadel of Lore, the fortress was besieged by the royal army. Throwing himself and his followers on the mercy of his uncle, he was blinded and castrated, in 1178, George III appointed his daughter and heiress Tamar as heir apparent and co-ruler to forestall any dispute after his death. However, he remained co-regent until his death in 1184 and he was buried at Gelati Monastery, western Georgia. 1155, George married Burdukhan, daughter of Khuddan, King of Alania and they had two daughters, Tamar, who succeeded him as ruler. Rusudan, married Manuel Komnenos, the eldest son of Andronikos I who was briefly Byzantine emperor, rusudan and Manuel were the parents of Alexios and David, founders of the Empire of Trebizond. List of Georgian Kings The unification of feudal Georgia The Bagrationi Dynasty
12.
Erzurum Province
–
Erzurum Province is a province of Turkey in the Eastern Anatolia Region of the country. It is bordered by the provinces of Kars and Ağrı to the east, Muş and Bingöl to the south, Erzincan and Bayburt to the west, Rize and Artvin to the north, the surface area of the province of Erzurum is the fourth biggest in Turkey. The majority of the province is elevated, most plateaus are about 2,000 m above sea level, and the mountainous regions beyond the plateaus are 3,000 m and higher. Depression plains are located between the mountains and plateaus, the southern mountain ranges include the Palandöken Mountains and the Şahveled Mountains. The northern mountain ranges are the second row elevations of the North Anatolian Mountains, i. e. Mescit Mountains, Kargapazarı Mountains, the two depression plains between these mountainous areas are Erzurum Plains and Hasankale Plains. Continental climate rules in the province with long and harsh winters, the average low temperature is −8.6 °C, while the average high temperature is 12 °C. Average annual precipitation is 453 mm. Snow falls on an average of 80 days, steppe formations are prevalent geographic features of this province, occupying about 60% of the surface area, much of it fertile. Forested areas are small, mainly consisting of scots pines and oaks, the eastern part of the province lies in the basin of the Aras river, the western part in the Karasu basin, and the northern part in the Çoruh basin. There are few lakes in the province, the major one being Lake Tortum fed by the Tortum Falls. A hydroelectric power plant built in 1963 is situated on the inlet of this lake, there are three artificial lakes in the province. Known as Karanitis ), Arzen, Erzen, and Karin or Garin, most of the province was incorporated into the Roman Empire in the 4th century, and it became an important border fortress. This city was renamed to Theodosiopolis, in honour of Emperor Theodosius I. The city was held by the Arabs and Byzantines during the 7-10th centuries it was also part of the Armenian kingdom of Tayk in the 10th century. Threatened and later devastated and looted by the Seljuk Turks in 1049, the old city of Erzen was conquered, from the year 1101 onward it is documented that the ruling dynasty of the Saltukids held the town and much of the surrounding area in their power. Theodosiopolis repelled many attacks and military campaigns by the Seljuks of Rum and Georgians until 1201 when the city, erzen-Erzurum fell to the Mongol siege in 1242, and the city was looted and devastated. Finally, in 1514, the region was conquered by the Ottoman Sultan Selim I following the Battle of Chaldiran, during the Ottoman reign, the city served as the main base of Ottoman military power in the region and as the capital of the province. Early in the 17th century, the province was threatened again and this revolt was combined with Jelali Revolts, backed by Safavid Iran and lasted until 1628. However, Iran would reconquered it again, only time under Nader Shah in the first half of the 18th century
13.
Bayburt
–
Bayburt is a city in northeast Turkey lying on the Çoruh River and is the provincial capital of Bayburt Province. Bayburt was once an important center on the ancient Silk Road and it was visited by Marco Polo and Evliya Çelebi. Remains of its medieval castle still exist, there are several historical mosques, Turkish baths, and tombs in the city. There are also ancient historical sites such as the Çatalçeşme Underground Complex, the name of the town was formerly written in English as Baiburt. It was known as Paipert under the Byzantines, the name derives from the medieval Armenian Baydbert, which derives from its ancient name Ambatavan. Bayburt strattles the Çoruh amid an open and fertile plateau on the route between Trabzon and Erzurum and it was founded by the Azzi people. The town was the site of an Armenian fortress in the 1st century and it was a stronghold of the Genovese in the late Middle Ages and prospered in the late 13th and early 14th century because of the commerce between Trebizond and Persia. It contained a mint under the Seljuks and Ilkhanids, under Ottoman rule, the town was the center of the Bayburt Sanjak in Erzurum Eyalet. When Erzurum was devastated in the early 16th century, Bayburt served for a time as the de facto capital of the province, the area was raided by the Safavids in 1553. Bayburt was captured by a Russian army under General Paskevich and its fortifications thoroughly demolished in 1829 and it was the furthest westward reach of the Russians during that campaign. The British traveller William John Hamilton commented on the ruins in the 1840s, the bazaar, however, remained poor and the town long lacked industry. Prior to the First World War, the population of 10,000 was mostly Turkish with some Armenians, Bayburt has a continental climate with freezing cold winters, the majority of the time snowing heavily. Summers are warm with cool nights, the climate is best described as humid continental by the Köppen Climate System Dfb, on the border of Dsb. Most of the precipitation occurs in spring and early summer. Bayburt has many parks and open spaces like Aslan dağı Ormanı Gençlik Parkı, Şehit Nusret Bahçesi. The city has 535. 780m² of nursery areas, where plants are raised for the forests of Bayburt. Also there are two caves that visitors can see the natural shapes of the stones. These caves are, Çimağıl Mağarası and Helva Köyü Buz Mağarası, Bayburt Castle stands on the steep rocks north of Bayburt
14.
Erzincan
–
Erzincan is the capital of Erzincan Province in northeastern Turkey. Nearby cities include Erzurum, Sivas, Tunceli, Bingöl, Elâzığ, Malatya, Gümüşhane, Bayburt, located at an altitude of 1,185 meters above sea level, the citys climate produces snowy winters and warm summers. The city is notable for handcrafted copper goods and a cheese called tulum peyniri in Turkish. It is a significant road and rail junction and was noted for its silverware. Current industries include sugar refining and textile industries, the city is home to the headquarters of the Turkish Third Army. This is the name by which it is called by Strabo in his Geography,11.4.14, the etymological origin of the word is disputed, but it is agreed that the city was once called Erez. For a while it was called Justinianopolis in honour of Emperor Justinian, a text of Agathangelos reports that during the first year of his reign, King Trdat of Armenia went to Erez and visited Anahits temple to offer sacrifice. He ordered Gregory the Illuminator, who was secretly a Christian, when Gregory refused, he was taken captive and tortured, starting the events that would end with Trdats conversion to Christianity some 14 years later. After that conversion, during the Christianisation of Armenia, the temple at Erez was destroyed and its property and it later became known for its extensive monasteries. It is hard to tell when Acilisene became a bishopric, the first whose name is known is of the mid-5th century, Ioannes, who in 459 signed the decree of Patriarch Gennadius I of Constantinople against the simoniacs. Georgius or Gregorius was one of the Fathers of the Second Council of Constantinople, theodorus was at the Third Council of Constantinople in 681, signing as bishop of Justinianopolis or the region of Ecclenzine. Georgius was at the Photian Council of Constantinople, until the 10th century, the diocese itself appears in none of the Notitiae Episcopatuum. At the end of century, they present it as an autocephalous archdiocese. This was the time of greatest splendour of Acilisene, which ended with the defeat of the Byzantines by the Seljuq Turks at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. After the 13th century there is no mention of bishops of Acilisene. No longer a residential bishopric, Acilisene is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see, in 1071 Erzincan was absorbed into the Mengüçoğlu under the Seljuk Sulëiman Kutalmish. Marco Polo, who wrote about his visit to Erzincan, said that the people of the country are Armenians, in 1243 it was destroyed in fighting between the Seljuks under Kaykhusraw II and the Mongols. However, by 1254 its population had recovered enough that William of Rubruck was able to say an earthquake had killed more than 10,000 people, during this period, the city reached a level of semi-independence under the rule of Armenian princes
15.
Kars Province
–
Kars Province is a province of Turkey, located in the northeastern part of the country. It shares part of its border with the Republic of Armenia. The provincial capital is the city of Kars, the provinces of Ardahan and Iğdır were until the 1990s part of Kars Province. In ancient times, Kars was part of the province of Ararat in the Kingdom of Armenia, the first known people were the followers of Vanand, for whom Kars was their main settlement and fortress. In 928, Kars became the capital of Armenia, in 968, the capital of Armenia was moved to Ani, but Kars remained the capital of the feudal principality of Vanand. Later on, in 1209, Georgian army commanded by David Soslan and brothers Ivane, as a result of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 to 1878, the province of Kars was incorporated into the Russian Empire as part of the militarily administered Kars Oblast and remained so until 1918. It was seen as a province of a Russian Empire which was seeking to expand yet further by the conquest of more territory belonging to the Ottoman Empire. Many from the non-Russian Christian Orthodox communities had fought in or collaborated with the Russian Imperial army to capture Kars province from the Muslim Ottomans. They saw this as a means of fulfilling their own ambitions to recapture Christian territory on the back of the Russian imperial enterprise, turkish and Caucasian peoples make up the majority of the provinces population. It is suggested that about 20% of the population is Kurdish, Kars province is divided into 8 districts, each named after the administrative center of the district, There are 383 villages in Kars. Kars has a wealth of wildlife that is being documented by the Kars-Igdir Biodiversity Project run by the KuzeyDoga Society, the project has recorded 323 of Turkeys 468 bird species in the region. At least 223 of these occur at Lake Kuyucuk, that is the most important wetland in the region. Sarikamis Forests in the south harbor Indian wolves, Syrian brown bear, Caucasian lynx and other animals, Aras River Bird Research and Education Center at Yukari Ciyrikli village has recorded 228 bird species at this single location alone. The economy of Kars Province is dominated by agriculture, livestock breeding, 85% of the active population in Kars Province are farmers or herders. 60% of the domestic income is received from those sectors. Industry, tourism and commerce is developing, the climate limits the cultivation of plants in the region. In Kağızman and Tuzluca, cotton, sugar beet, beans, vegetable gardening and orchards are not very developed. Wheat, barley, cotton and in small quantity tobacco are grown in the province, livestock breeding in the region is more important than agriculture
16.
Sukman II
–
This region comprised most of Bitlis and Van provinces and parts of Batman, Muş, Siirt and Diyarbakır. The dynasty is also called Sökmenli in reference to the founder of the principality, Sökmen el-Kutbî, literally Sökmen the Slave. The Ahlatshah Sökmenli should not be confused with the Artuqid branch of Sökmenli, another title Sökmen and his descendants assumed, as heirs to the local Armenian princes according to Clifford Edmund Bosworth, was the Persian title Shah-i Arman, often rendered as Ermenshahs. The Beylik was founded by the Turkish slave commander Sökmen who took over Ahlat in 1100, Ahlatshahs were closely tied to Great Seljuq institutions, although they also followed independent policies like the wars against Georgia in alliance with their neighbors to the north, the Saltukids. They also acquired links with the branch of the Artuqid dynasty based in Meyyafarikin, becoming part of a nexus of Turkish principalities in Upper Mesopotamia, the Ahlatshahs reached their brightest period under the fifty-seven-year reign of Sökmen II. He was married to a relative of the Saltukid ruler Saltuk. Since Sökmen II was childless, the beylik was seized by a series of slave commanders after his death, in 1207, the beylik was taken over by the Ayyubids, who had long coveted Ahlat. The Ahlatshahs left a number of historic tombstones in and around the city of Ahlat. Local administrators are trying to have the tombstones included in UNESCOs World Heritage List
17.
Tercan
–
Tercan is a town and district of Erzincan Province in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey. The district covers an area of 1,592 km2 and its population is 20,072 of which 6,646 live in the town of Tercan. The 17th century Ottoman traveller Evliya Celebi visited the place in 1647 and he wrote about the Saltukid complex and described the town as a Muslim village containing two hundred houses. Mama Hatun complex, tomb, caravanserai, mosque and hammam Kötür bridge Pekeriç fortress Abrenk church Kefrenci temple Saltukids Melike Mama Hatun
18.
Mamluk
–
Mamluk is an Arabic designation for slaves. The term is most commonly used to refer to Muslim slave soldiers and these were mostly enslaved Turkic peoples, Egyptian Copts, Circassians, Abkhazians, and Georgians. Many Mamluks were also of Balkan origin, over time, the mamluks became a powerful military knightly caste in various societies that were controlled by Muslim rulers. Particularly in Egypt, but also in the Levant, Mesopotamia, in some cases, they attained the rank of sultan, while in others they held regional power as emirs or beys. Most notably, mamluk factions seized the sultanate centered on Egypt and Syria, the Mamluk Sultanate famously defeated the Ilkhanate at the Battle of Ain Jalut. They had earlier fought the western European Christian Crusaders in 1154-1169 and 1213-1221, effectively driving them out of Egypt, in 1302 the mamluks formally expelled the last Crusaders from the Levant, ending the era of the Crusades. While mamluks were purchased as property, their status was above ordinary slaves, in a sense they were like enslaved mercenaries. In the Middle Ages, the Mamlukes took up the practice of furusiyya chivalry although Mamluk knights were slaves until their service ended, the Arabic term for a knight was fāris, The faris and the notion of furusiyya originated in pre-Muslim Persian brotherhoods. Within the Muslim world, the fursān became prized as ideal warriors and they were also trained in wrestling, and their martial skills were honed first on foot as piéton and then perfected when as mounted warriors. They were popularly used as heavy knightly cavalry by a number of different Islamic kingdoms and empires, including the Ayyubid dynasty, the origins of the mamluk system are disputed. Historians agree that a military caste such as the mamluks appeared to develop in Islamic societies beginning with the ninth-century Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad. When in the century has not been determined. Up until the 1990s, it was believed that the earliest mamluks were known as ghilman and were bought by the Abbasid caliphs. By the end of the 9th century, such warrior slaves had become the dominant element in the military, conflict between these ghilman and the population of Baghdad prompted the caliph al-Mutasim to move his capital to the city of Samarra, but this did not succeed in calming tensions. The caliph al-Mutawakkil was assassinated by some of these slave-soldiers in 861, adult slaves and freemen both served as warriros. The mamluk system developed later, after the return of the caliphate to Baghdad in the 870s and it included the systematic training of young slaves in military and martial skills. The Mamluk system is considered to have been an experiment of al-Muwaffaq. This recent interpretation seems to have been accepted, after the fragmentation of the Abbasid Empire, military slaves, known as either mamluks or ghilman, were used throughout the Islamic world as the basis of military power
19.
Caravanserai
–
A caravanserai (/kærəˈvænsəri/, was a roadside inn where travelers could rest and recover from the days journey. Caravanserais supported the flow of commerce, information, and people across the network of routes covering Asia, North Africa. Major urban caravanserais were built along the Grand Trunk Road in the Indian subcontinent. The word is rendered as caravansary, caravansaray, caravanseray. The Persian word کاروانسرای kārvānsarāy is a word combining kārvān caravan with sarāy palace, building with enclosed courts. Here caravan means a group of traders, pilgrims, or other travelers, the word serai is sometimes used with the implication of caravanserai. The Persian caravanserai was built as a road station, outside of towns. An inn built inside a town would be smaller and was known in Persian as a khan, in the Middle-East the term khan covers both meanings, of roadside inn as well as of inner-town inn. In Turkish the word is rendered as han, the same word was used in Bosnian, having arrived through Ottoman conquest. Welcoming all, thus meaning inn, led to funduq in Arabic, pundak in Hebrew, fundaco in Venice, fondaco in Genoa and alhóndiga in Spanish. Guards were stationed at every gate to ensure that taxes for these goods be paid in full, most typically a caravanserai was a building with a square or rectangular walled exterior, with a single portal wide enough to permit large or heavily laden beasts such as camels to enter. Caravanserais provided water for human and animal consumption, washing, and ritual purification such as wudu and they also kept fodder for animals and had shops for travelers where they could acquire new supplies. In addition, some shops bought goods from the traveling merchants, turkishhan. org, The Seljuk Han in Anatolia. Encyclopædia Iranica, p. 798-802 Erdmann, Kurt, Erdmann, berlin, Mann,1976, ISBN 3-7861-2241-5 Hillenbrand, Robert. Islamic Architecture, Form, function and meaning, reprinted from, Traditions Architecturales en Iran, Tehran, No.2 &3,1976. Caravanserai, Traces, Places, Dialogue in the Middle East, milan,5 Continents Editions, ISBN 978-88-7439-604-7 Yavuz, Aysil Tükel. The Concepts that Shape Anatolian Seljuq Caravansara, muqarnas XIV, An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World. Shah Abbasi Caravanserai, Tishineh Caravansara Pictures Consideratcaravanserai. net, Texts and photos on research on caravanserais and travel journeys in Middle East, caravanserais in Turkey The Seljuk Han in Anatolia
20.
Turkish people
–
Turkish people, or the Turks, also known as Anatolian Turks, are a Turkic ethnic group and nation living mainly in Turkey and speaking Turkish, the most widely spoken Turkic language. They are the largest ethnic group in Turkey, as well as by far the largest ethnic group among the speakers of Turkic languages, ethnic Turkish minorities exist in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire. In addition, a Turkish diaspora has been established with modern migration, the ethnonym Turk may be first discerned in Herodotus reference to Targitas, first king of the Scythians, furthermore, during the first century AD. Pomponius Mela refers to the Turcae in the north of the Sea of Azov. The first definite references to the Turks come mainly from Chinese sources in the sixth century, in these sources, Turk appears as Tujue, which referred to the Göktürks. Although Turk refers to Turkish people, it may sometimes refer to the wider language group of Turkic peoples. In the 19th century, the word Türk only referred to Anatolian villagers, the Ottoman ruling class identified themselves as Ottomans, not usually as Turks. In the late 19th century, as the Ottoman upper classes adopted European ideas of nationalism the term Türk took on a more positive connotation. The Turkish-speakers of Anatolia were the most loyal supporters of Ottoman rule, Turkish Jews, Christians, or even Alevis may be considered non-Turks. On the other hand, Kurdish Arab followers of the Sunni branch of Islam who live in eastern Anatolia are sometimes considered Turks, article 66 of the Turkish Constitution defines a Turk as anyone who is bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship. Anatolia was first inhabited by hunter-gatherers during the Paleolithic era, most of the Turkic peoples were followers of Tengriism, sharing the cult of the sky god Tengri, although there were also adherents of Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism. However, during the Muslim conquests, the Turks entered the Muslim world proper as servants, during the booty of Arab raids, the Turks began converting to Islam after Muslim conquest of Transoxiana through the efforts of missionaries, Sufis, and merchants. Although initiated by the Arabs, the conversion of the Turks to Islam was filtered through Persian, under the Umayyads, most were domestic servants, whilst under the Abbasids, increasing numbers were trained as soldiers. By the ninth century, Turkish commanders were leading the caliphs’ Turkish troops into battle, as the Abbasid caliphate declined, Turkish officers assumed more military and political power taking over or establishing provincial dynasties with their own corps of Turkish troops. During the 11th century the Seljuk Turks who were admirers of the Persian civilization grew in number and were able to occupy the province of the Abbasid Empire. By 1055, the Seljuk Empire captured Baghdad and began to make their first incursions into the edges of Anatolia, when the Seljuk Turks won the Battle of Manzikert against the Byzantine Empire in 1071, it opened the gates of Anatolia to them. Although ethnically Turkish, the Seljuk Turks appreciated and became the purveyors of the Persian culture rather than the Turkish culture, in dire straits, the Byzantine Empire turned to the West for help setting in motion the pleas that led to the First Crusade. Once the Crusaders took Iznik, the Seljuk Turks established the Sultanate of Rum from their new capital, Konya, by the 12th century the Europeans had begun to call the Anatolian region Turchia or Turkey, meaning the land of the Turks
21.
Mysticism
–
Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in ultimate or hidden truths, the term mysticism has Ancient Greek origins with various historically determined meanings. Derived from the Greek word μυω, meaning to conceal, mysticism referred to the liturgical, spiritual. During the early period, the definition of mysticism grew to include a broad range of beliefs. In modern times, mysticism has acquired a limited definition, with applications, as meaning the aim at the union with the Absolute. This limited definition has been applied to a range of religious traditions and practices. Since the 1960s scholars have debated the merits of perennial and constructionist approaches in the research of mystical experiences. The perennial position is now largely dismissed by scholars, most scholars using a contextual approach, Mysticism is derived from the Greek μυω, meaning I conceal, and its derivative μυστικός, mystikos, meaning an initiate. The verb μυώ has received a different meaning in the Greek language. The primary meanings it has are induct and initiate, secondary meanings include introduce, make someone aware of something, train, familiarize, give first experience of something. The related form of the verb appears in the New Testament. As explained in Strongs Concordance, it properly means shutting the eyes and its figurative meaning is to be initiated into the mystery revelation. The meaning derives from the rites of the pagan mysteries. Also appearing in the New Testament is the related noun μυστήριον, the term means anything hidden, a mystery or secret, of which initiation is necessary. According to Thayers Greek Lexicon, the term μυστήριον in classical Greek meant a hidden thing, a particular meaning it took in Classical antiquity was a religious secret or religious secrets, confided only to the initiated and not to be communicated by them to ordinary mortals. In the Septuagint and the New Testament the meaning it took was that of a purpose or counsel. It is sometimes used for the hidden wills of humans, but is often used for the hidden will of God. Elsewhere in the Bible it takes the meaning of the mystic or hidden sense of things and it is used for the secrets behind sayings, names, or behind images seen in visions and dreams
22.
Saint
–
A saint, also historically known as a hallow, is a term used for a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness or likeness to God. Depending on the context and denomination, the term also retains its original Christian meaning, as any believer who is in Christ and in whom Christ dwells, whether in Heaven or on Earth. Depending on the religion, saints are recognized either by official ecclesiastical declaration, the English word saint comes from the Latin sanctus. The word translated the Greek ἅγιος, which derives from the verb ἁγιάζω, the word ἅγιος appears 229 times in the Greek New Testament, and its English translation 60 times in the corresponding text of the King James Version of the Bible. In the New Testament, saint did not denote the deceased who had recognized as especially holy or emulable. Many religions also use similar concepts to venerate persons worthy of some honor, the anthropologist Lawrence Babb in an article about Sathya Sai Baba asks the question Who is a saint. These saintly figures, he asserts, are the points of spiritual force-fields. They exert powerful attractive influence on followers but touch the lives of others in transforming ways as well. In the Bible, only one person is called a saint, They envied Moses also in the camp. The apostle Paul declared himself to be less than the least of all saints in Ephesians 3,8, in the Catholic Church, a saint is anyone in Heaven, whether recognized on Earth or not. There are many persons that the Church believes to be in Heaven who have not been formally canonized, sometimes the word saint also denotes living Christians. They remind us that the Church is holy, can never stop being holy and is called to show the holiness of God by living the life of Christ, the Catholic Church teaches that it does not make or create saints, but rather recognizes them. Proofs of heroicity required in the process of beatification will serve to illustrate in detail the general principles exposed above upon proof of their holiness or likeness to God. On 3 January 993, Pope John XV became the first pope to proclaim a person a saint, on the petition of the German ruler, before that time, the popular cults, or venerations, of saints had been local and spontaneous. Pope John XVIII subsequently permitted a cult of five Polish martyrs, walter of Pontoise was the last person in Western Europe to be canonized by an authority other than the Pope, Hugh de Boves, the Archbishop of Rouen, canonized him in 1153. Thenceforth a decree of Pope Alexander III in 1170 reserved the prerogative of canonization to the Pope, one source claims that there are over 10,000 named saints and beatified people from history, the Roman Martyrology and Orthodox sources, but no definitive head count. Alban Butler published Lives of the Saints in 1756, including a total of 1,486 saints, the latest revision of this book, edited by Rev. Herbert Thurston, SJ and British author Donald Attwater, contains the lives of 2,565 saints. Monsignor Robert Sarno, an official of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints of the Holy See, expressed that it is impossible to give an exact number of saints
23.
Anatolia
–
Anatolia, in geography known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea to the Armenian Highlands, thus, traditionally Anatolia is the territory that comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. The Turkification of Anatolia began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century, however, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian, Arabic, Laz, Georgian, and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea. This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Websters 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 the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria, the first name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula was Ἀσία, presumably after the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. As the name of Asia came to be extended to areas east of the Mediterranean. The name Anatolia derives from the Greek ἀνατολή meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise”, the precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme was a theme covering the western, the modern Turkish form of Anatolia is Anadolu, which again derives from the Greek name Aνατολή. The Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin, in English the name of Turkey for ancient Anatolia first appeared c. It is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia, which was used by the Europeans to define the Seljuk controlled parts of Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert. Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic, 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 the Anatolian languages, the oldest branch of Indo-European, have spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BC. The earliest historical records of Anatolia stem from the southeast of the region and are from the Mesopotamian-based Akkadian Empire during the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century BC, scholars generally believe the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians. The region was famous for exporting raw materials, and areas of Hattian-, one of the numerous cuneiform records dated circa 20th century BC, found in Anatolia at the Assyrian colony of Kanesh, uses an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language, originating from Nesa, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BC, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the most widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland, however, the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script, invented in Mesopotamia
24.
Balkans
–
The Balkan Peninsula, or the Balkans, is a peninsula and a cultural area in Eastern and Southeastern Europe with various and disputed borders. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch from the Serbia-Bulgaria border to the Black Sea, the highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala 2,925 metres in the Rila mountain range. In Turkish, Balkan means a chain of wooded mountains, the name is still preserved in Central Asia with the Balkan Daglary and the Balkan Province of Turkmenistan. A less popular hypothesis regarding its etymology is that it derived from the Persian Balā-Khāna, from Antiquity through the Middle Ages, the Balkan Mountains had been called by the local Thracian name Haemus. According to Greek mythology, the Thracian king Haemus was turned into a mountain by Zeus as a punishment, a reverse name scheme has also been suggested. D. Dechev considers that Haemus is derived from a Thracian word *saimon, a third possibility is that Haemus derives from the Greek word haema meaning blood. The myth relates to a fight between Zeus and the monster/titan Typhon, Zeus injured Typhon with a thunder bolt and Typhons blood fell on the mountains, from which they got their name. The earliest mention of the name appears in an early 14th-century Arab map, the Ottomans first mention it in a document dated from 1565. There has been no other documented usage of the word to refer to the region before that, there is also a claim about an earlier Bulgar Turkic origin of the word popular in Bulgaria, however it is only an unscholarly assertion. The word was used by the Ottomans in Rumelia in its meaning of mountain, as in Kod̲j̲a-Balkan, Čatal-Balkan, and Ungurus-Balkani̊. The concept of the Balkans was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, during the 1820s, Balkan became the preferred although not yet exclusive term alongside Haemus among British travelers. Among Russian travelers not so burdened by classical toponymy, Balkan was the preferred term, zeunes goal was to have a geographical parallel term to the Italic and Iberian Peninsula, and seemingly nothing more. The gradually acquired political connotations are newer and, to a large extent, after the dissolution of Yugoslavia beginning in June 1991, the term Balkans again received a negative meaning, especially in Croatia and Slovenia, even in casual usage. A European Union initiative of 1999 is called the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, and its northern boundary is often given as the Danube, Sava and Kupa Rivers. The Balkan Peninsula has an area of about 470,000 km2. It is more or less identical to the known as Southeastern Europe. As of 1920 until World War II, Italy included Istria, the current territory of Italy includes only the small area around Trieste inside the Balkan Peninsula. However, the regions of Trieste and Istria are not usually considered part of the Balkans by Italian geographers, the Western Balkans is a neologism coined to describe the countries of ex-Yugoslavia and Albania
25.
Dobruja
–
Dobruja is a historical region shared today by Bulgaria and Romania. It is situated between the lower Danube River and the Black Sea, and includes the Danube Delta, Romanian coast, the territory of Dobruja is made up of Northern Dobruja, which is part of Romania, and Southern Dobruja, which belongs to Bulgaria. The territory of the Romanian region Dobrogea is now organised as the counties of Constanța and Tulcea, with an area of 15,500 km2. Its main cities are Constanța, Tulcea, Medgidia and Mangalia, Dobrogea is represented by dolphins in the coat of arms of Romania. The Bulgarian region of Dobrudzha is divided between the regions of Dobrich, Silistra, the villages, Konevo, Rainino, Terter and Madrevo. This part has an area of 7,565 km2, with a combined population of some 350,000 people. With the exception of the Danube Delta, a region located in its northeastern corner, Dobruja is hilly. The highest point is in the Țuțuiatu Peak in the Măcin Mountains, the Dobrogea Plateau covers most of the Romanian part of Dobruja, while in the Bulgarian part the Ludogorie Plateau is found. Lake Siutghiol is one of the most important lakes in Northern Dobruja, the Black Sea also exerts an influence over the regions climate, particularly within 40–60 kilometres from the coast. The average annual temperatures range from 11 °C inland and along the Danube to 11.8 °C on the coast, the coastal region of Southern Dobruja is the most arid part of Bulgaria, with an annual precipitation of 450 millimetres. Dobruja is a region once known for its windmills. About 85–90% of all experience some kind of wind, which usually comes from the north or northeast. The average wind speed is twice higher than the average in Bulgaria. Due to the precipitation and the proximity to the sea, rivers in Dobruja are usually short. However, the region has a number of shallow lakes with brackish water. The most widespread opinion among scholars is that the origin of the term Dobruja is to be found in the Turkish rendition of the name of a 14th‑century Bulgarian ruler and it was common for the Turks to name countries after one of their early rulers. Other etymologies have been considered, but never gained widespread acceptance, abdolonyme Ubicini believed the name meant good lands, derived from Slavic dobro, an opinion that was adopted by several 19th‑century scholars. I. A. Nazarettean combines the Slavic word with the Tatar budjak, a version matching contemporaneous descriptions was suggested by Kanitz, which connected the name with the Bulgarian dobrice
26.
Sultanate of Rum
–
The name Rûm reflects the Arabic name of Anatolia, الرُّومُ ar-Rūm, a loan from Greek Ρωμιοί Romans. The Sultanate of Rum seceded from the Great Seljuk Empire under Suleiman ibn Qutulmish in 1077, following the Battle of Manzikert, with capitals first at İznik and then at Konya. It reached the height of its power during the late 12th and early 13th century, in the east, the sultanate absorbed other Turkish states and reached Lake Van. Trade from Iran and Central Asia across Anatolia was developed by a system of caravanserai, especially strong trade ties with the Genoese formed during this period. The increased wealth allowed the sultanate to absorb other Turkish states that had established in eastern Anatolia. The Seljuq sultans bore the brunt of the Crusades, and eventually succumbed to the Mongol invasion in 1243, for the remainder of the 13th century, the Seljuqs acted as vassals of the Ilkhanate. Their power disintegrated during the half of the 13th century. The last of the Seljuq vassals of the Ilkhanate, Mesud II, was murdered in 1308, the dissolution of the Seljuq state left behind a number of Anatolian beyliks, among them that of the Ottoman dynasty, which eventually became the Ottoman Empire. In 1075, he captured the Byzantine cities of Nicaea and Nicomedia, two years later, he declared himself sultan of an independent Seljuq state and established his capital at İznik. Suleyman was killed in Antioch in 1086 by Tutush I, the Seljuk ruler of Syria, when Malik Shah died in 1092, Kilij Arslan was released and immediately established himself in his fathers territories. Kilij Arslan was defeated by soldiers of the First Crusade and driven back into south-central Anatolia, in 1107, he ventured east and captured Mosul but died the same year fighting Malik Shahs son, Mehmed Tapar. Meanwhile, another Rum Seljuq, Malik Shah, captured Konya, in 1116 Kilij Arslans son, Mesud I, took the city with the help of the Danishmends. Upon Mesuds death in 1156, the sultanate controlled nearly all of central Anatolia, Mesuds son, Kilij Arslan II, captured the remaining territories around Sivas and Malatya from the last of the Danishmends. At the Battle of Myriokephalon in 1176, Kilij Arslan II also defeated a Byzantine army led by Manuel I Komnenos, despite a temporary occupation of Konya in 1190 by the Holy Roman Empires forces of the Third Crusade, the sultanate was quick to recover and consolidate its power. During the last years of Kilij Arslan IIs reign, the experienced a civil war with Kaykhusraw I fighting to retain control. Suleiman II was routed by Kingdom of Georgia in Battle of Basian and he was succeeded by his son Kilij Arslan III, whose reign was unpopular. Kaykhusraw I seized Konya in 1205 reestablishing his reign, under his rule and those of his two successors, Kaykaus I and Kayqubad I, Seljuq power in Anatolia reached its apogee. Kaykhusraws most important achievement was the capture of the harbour of Attalia on the Mediterranean coast in 1207 and his son Kaykaus captured Sinop and made the Empire of Trebizond his vassal in 1214
27.
History of Turkey
–
See History of the Republic of Turkey for the history of the modern state. The history of Turkey, understood as the history of the region now forming the territory of the Republic of Turkey, the earliest representations of culture in Anatolia were Stone Age artifacts. The remnants of Bronze Age civilizations such as the Hattian, Akkadian, Assyrian, after the fall of the Hittites, the new states of Phrygia and Lydia stood strong on the western coast as Greek civilization began to flourish. They, and all the rest of Anatolia were relatively soon after incorporated into the Achaemenid Persian Empire, as Persia grew in strength, their system of local government in Anatolia allowed many port cities to grow and to become wealthy. All of Anatolia got divided into satrapies, ruled by satraps appointed by the central Persian rulers. Some of the satraps revolted periodically but did not pose a serious threat, in the 5th century BC, Darius I built the Royal Road, which linked the principal city of Susa with the west Anatolian city of Sardis. Anatolia played a role in Achaemenid history. In the earliest 5th century BC, some of the Ionian cities under Persian rule revolted, which culminated into the Ionian Revolt. This revolt, after being suppressed by the Persian authority, laid the direct uplead for the Greco-Persian Wars. After Achaemenid Persian rule, the Greek Alexander the Great finally wrested control of the region from Persia in successive battles. The Seleucid Empire, the largest of Alexanders territories, and which included Anatolia, became involved in a war with Rome culminating in the battles of Thermopylae. The resulting Treaty of Apamea in saw the Seleucids retreat from Anatolia, the Kingdom of Pergamum and the Republic of Rhodes, Romes allies in the war, were granted the former Seleucid lands in Anatolia. Roman control of Anatolia was strengthened by a hands off approach by Rome, allowing control to govern effectively. The Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting an area in Central. They were bordered by the Scythians to the north, the Celts and the Illyrians to the west, the Ancient Greeks to the south and they spoke the Thracian language – a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family. The study of Thracians and Thracian culture is known as Thracology, starting around 1200 BC, the western coast of Anatolia was heavily settled by Aeolian and Ionian Greeks. Numerous important cities were founded by colonists, such as Miletus, Ephesus, Smyrna and Byzantium. The territory of Thrace later became unified by the Odrysian kingdom, founded by Teres I, a type of soldier of this period called the Peltast probably originated in Thrace
28.
Prehistory
–
Prehistory means literally before history, from the Latin word for before, præ, and Greek ιστορία. Neighbouring civilisations were the first to follow, most other civilisations reached the end of prehistory during the Iron Age. The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing is known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no records from human prehistory. Clear techniques for dating were not well-developed until the 19th century and this article is concerned with human prehistory as defined here above. There are separate articles for the history of the Earth. However, for the race as a whole, prehistory ends when recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world around the 4th millennium BC. For example, in Egypt it is accepted that prehistory ended around 3200 BC, whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently. The three-age system is the periodization of prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies, Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age. The notion of prehistory began to surface during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word primitive to describe societies that existed before written records, the first use of the word prehistory in English, however, occurred in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836. The main source for prehistory is archaeology, but some scholars are beginning to more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. This view has been articulated by advocates of deep history, human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight for these questions. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology, restricted to material processes, remains and artifacts rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that use, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. Palaeolithic means Old Stone Age, and begins with the first use of stone tools, the Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age. The early part of the Palaeolithic is called the Lower Palaeolithic, evidence of control of fire by early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel. The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, Early Homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic
29.
Prehistory of Anatolia
–
The prehistory of Anatolia stretches from the Paleolithic era through to the appearance of classical civilisation in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. It is generally regarded as being divided into three ages reflecting the dominant materials used for the making of domestic implements and weapons, Stone Age, Bronze Age, the term Copper Age is used to denote the period straddling the stone and Bronze Ages. Anatolia, also known by the Latin name of Asia Minor, is considered to be the westernmost extent of Western Asia, the earliest representations of culture in Anatolia can be found in several archaeological sites located in the central and eastern part of the region. Stone Age artifacts such as bones and food fossils were found at Burdur. After the fall of the Hittites, the new states of Phrygia and Lydia stood strong on the western coast as Greek civilization began to flourish, only the threat from a distant Persian kingdom prevented them from advancing past their peak of success. The Stone Age is a period in which stone was widely used in the manufacture of implements. In 2014, a tool was found in the Gediz River that was securely dated to 1.2 million years ago. Evidence of paleolithic habitation include the Yarimburgaz Cave, Karain Cave, examples of paleolithic humans can be found in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, in the Archaeological Museum in Antalya, and in other Turkish institutions. Evidence of fruit and of animal bones has been found at Yarimburgaz, the caves of the Mediterranean region contain murals. Original claims of 250, 000-year-old, Middle Pleistocene, Homo sapiens footprints at Kula, remains of a mesolithic culture in Anatolia can be found along the Mediterranean coast and also in Thrace and the western Black Sea area. Mesolithic remains have been located in the caves as the paleolithic artefacts. Additional findings come from the Sarklimagara cave in Gaziantep, the Baradiz cave, as well as the cemeteries and open air settlements at Sogut Tarlasi, Biris and Urfa. Because of its location at the intersection of Asia and Europe. Neolithic settlements include Çatalhöyük, Çayönü, Nevali Cori, Aşıklı Höyük, Boncuklu Höyük Hacilar, Göbekli Tepe, Norsuntepe, Kosk, Çatalhöyük is considered the most advanced of these, and Çayönü in the east the oldest. We have an idea of the town layout at Çayönü, based on a central square with buildings constructed of stone. Archeological finds include farming tools that suggest both crops and animal husbandry as well as domestication of the dog, religion is represented by figurines of Cybele, a mother goddess. Hacilar followed Çayönü, and has dated to 7040 BCE. Straddling the Neolithic and early Bronze Age, the Chalcolithic era is defined by the first metal implements made with copper and this age is represented in Anatolia by sites at Hacilar, Beycesultan, Canhasan, Mersin Yumuktepe, Elazig Tepecik, Malatya Degirmentepe, Norsuntepe, and Istanbul Fikirtepe
30.
Bronze Age
–
The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Copper-tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the third millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition, although the Iron Age generally followed the Bronze Age, in some areas, the Iron Age intruded directly on the Neolithic. Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing, according to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt developed the earliest viable writing systems. The overall period is characterized by use of bronze, though the place and time of the introduction. Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques, tin must be mined and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of use of metals. The dating of the foil has been disputed, the Bronze Age in the ancient Near East began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC. Societies in the region laid the foundations for astronomy and mathematics, the usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people, ur in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The earliest mention of Babylonia appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC, the Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over 100 years later, it took over the other city-states. Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, by that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use. Elam was an ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia, in the Old Elamite period, Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it
31.
Troy
–
The present-day location is known as Hisarlik. It was the setting of the Trojan War described in the Greek Epic Cycle, in particular in the Iliad, a new capital called Ilium was founded on the site in the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus. It flourished until the establishment of Constantinople and declined gradually in the Byzantine era and these excavations revealed several cities built in succession. Troy VII has been identified with the city that the Hittites called Wilusa, the origin of the Greek Ἴλιον. Today, the hill at Hisarlık has given its name to a village near the ruins. It lies within the province of Çanakkale, some 30 km south-west of the provincial capital, the map here shows the adapted Scamander estuary with Ilium a little way inland across the Homeric plain. Troy was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1998, Ancient Greek historians variously placed the Trojan War in the 12th, 13th, or 14th centuries BC, Eratosthenes to 1184 BC, Herodotus to 1250 BC, Duris of Samos to 1334 BC. Modern archaeologists associate Homeric Troy with archaeological Troy VII, in the Iliad, the Achaeans set up their camp near the mouth of the River Scamander, where they had beached their ships. The city of Troy itself stood on a hill, across the plain of Scamander, recent geological findings have permitted the identification of the ancient Trojan coastline, and the results largely confirm the accuracy of the Homeric geography of Troy. In November 2001, the geologist John C, kraft from the University of Delaware and the classicist John V. Luce from Trinity College, Dublin, presented the results of investigations, begun in 1977, into the geology of the region. Besides the Iliad, there are references to Troy in the major work attributed to Homer. The Homeric legend of Troy was elaborated by the Roman poet Virgil in his Aeneid, the Greeks and Romans took for a fact the historicity of the Trojan War and the identity of Homeric Troy with the site in Anatolia. Alexander the Great, for example, visited the site in 334 BC and there made sacrifices at tombs associated with the Homeric heroes Achilles and Patroclus. After the 1995 find of a Luwian biconvex seal at Troy VII, with the rise of critical history, Troy and the Trojan War were, for a long time, consigned to the realms of legend. However, the location of ancient Troy had from classical times remained the subject of interest. The Troad peninsula was anticipated to be the location, leChavaliers location, published in his Voyage de la Troade, was the most commonly accepted theory for almost a century. In 1822, the Scottish journalist Charles Maclaren was the first to identify with confidence the position of the city as it is now known, the hill, near the city of Çanakkale, was known as Hisarlık. In 1868, Heinrich Schliemann visited Calvert and secured permission to excavate Hisarlık, in 1871–73 and 1878–79, he excavated the hill and discovered the ruins of a series of ancient cities dating from the Bronze Age to the Roman period
32.
Hattians
–
The Hattians were an ancient people who inhabited the land of Hatti in central Anatolia. The group was documented at least as early as the empire of Sargon of Akkad, 2000–1700 BC by the Indo-European Hittites, who were subsequently associated with the land of Hatti. The oldest name for central Anatolia, Land of the Hatti, was found on Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets from the period of Sargon the Great of Akkad c, 2350–2150 BC, on those tablets Assyrian-Akkadian traders implored King Sargon for help. This appellation continued to exist for about 1,500 years until 630 BC, the use of the word Proto-Hittite to refer to Hattians is inaccurate. Hittite is an Indo-European language, linguistically distinct from the Hattians, the Hittites continued to use the term Land of Hatti for their new kingdom. The Hattians eventually merged with people who spoke Indo-European languages like Hittite, Luwian, the Hattians were organised in city-states and small kingdoms or principalities. These cities were well organized and ruled as theocratic principalities, the Hattians spoke Hattic, a non-Indo-European language of uncertain affiliation. Hattic is now believed by scholars to be related to the Northwest Caucasian language group. The few texts that survive are predominantly religious or cultic in character and they provide us with the names of a number of Hattic deities, as well as Hattic personal and place-names. About 150 short specimens of Hattian text have been found in Hittite cuneiform clay tablets, Hattian leaders perhaps used scribes who wrote in Old Assyrian. Ekrem Akurgal wrote, the Anatolian princes used scribes knowing Assyrian for commerce with Mesopotomia as at Kanesh to conduct business with Assyria, from the 21st to the mid-18th centuries BC, Assyria established trade outposts in Hatti, such as at Hattum and Zalpa. Scholars have long assumed that the predominant population of the region of Anatolia in the millennium was an indigenous pre-Indo-European group called the Hattians. But it is possible that speakers of Indo-European languages were also in central Anatolia by then. Hattian became more ergative towards the New Hittite period and this development implies that Hattian remained alive until at least the end of the 14th century BC. Alexei Kassian proposed that the Northwest Caucasian languages, which are syntactically subject–object–verb, had contacts with Hattian. Hattian religion traces back to the Stone Age and it involved worship of the earth, which is personified as a mother goddess, the Hattians honored the mother goddess to ensure their crops and their own well-being. The Hattian pantheon of gods included the storm-god Taru, the sun-goddess Furušemu or Wurunšemu, reliefs in Çatal Hüyük show a female figure giving birth to a bull, i. e. the mother-goddess Kattahha was mother to the storm-god Taru. Later on the Hittites subsumed much of the Hattian pantheon into their own religious beliefs, the concept of the earth-bound deity was deeply rooted in the indigenous Hattian consciousness from prehistoric times
33.
Akkadian Empire
–
The empire united all the Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one rule. The Akkadian Empire controlled Mesopotamia, the Levant, and eastern and southern parts of Anatolia and Iran, sending military expeditions as far south as Dilmun and Magan in the Arabian Peninsula. During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed an intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism. Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language somewhere between the 3rd and the 2nd millennia BC, the Akkadian Empire reached its political peak between the 24th and 22nd centuries BC, following the conquests by its founder Sargon of Akkad. Under Sargon and his successors, the Akkadian language was imposed on neighboring conquered states such as Elam. Akkad is sometimes regarded as the first empire in history, though there are earlier Sumerian claimants, the Bible refers to Akkad in Genesis 10,10, which states that the beginning of Nimrods kingdom was in the land of Akkad. Nimrod is a Hebrew name not attested in Mesopotamians sources, many have pointed out similarities with the legend of Gilgamesh who founded Uruk, which is said to be the city Nimrod came to power. Today, some 7,000 texts from the Akkadian period alone are known, many later texts from the successor states of Assyria and Babylonia also deal with the Akkadian Empire. Understanding of the Akkadian Empire continues to be hampered by the fact that its capital Akkad has not yet been located, likewise, material that is thought to be Akkadian continues to be in use into the Ur III period. Many of the recent insights on the Akkadian Empire have come from excavations in the Upper Khabur area in modern northeastern Syria which was to become a part of Assyria after the fall of Akkad. For example, excavations at Tell Mozan brought to light a sealing of Taram-Agade, an unknown daughter of Naram-Sin. The excavators at nearby Tell Leilan have used the results from their investigations to argue that the Akkadian Empire came to an end due to a sudden drought, the so-called 4.2 kiloyear event. The impact of this event on Mesopotamia in general, and on the Akkadian Empire in particular. The Akkadian Period is contemporary with, EB IV, EB IVA and EJ IV, the absolute dates of their reigns are approximate. The Akkadian Empire takes its name from the region and city of Akkad, although the city of Akkad has not yet been identified on the ground, it is known from various textual sources. Among these is at least one text predating the reign of Sargon, together with the fact that the name Akkad is of non-Akkadian origin, this suggests that the city of Akkad may have already been occupied in pre-Sargonic times. Sargon of Akkad defeated and captured Lugal-Zage-Si in the Battle of Uruk, the earliest records in the Akkadian language date to the time of Sargon. Sargon was claimed to be the son of Laibum or Itti-Bel, a humble gardener, One legend related of Sargon in Assyrian times says that My mother was a changeling, my father I knew not
34.
Luwians
–
Luwian is an ancient language or group of languages of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The two varieties of Luwian are named for the scripts that they were written in, Cuneiform Luwian, as to whether these were one language or two, there is no consensus. Several other languages in Anatolia have been identified as being most similar to Luwian, some linguists name the branch the Luwian Group or just Luwian and, in that sense, Luwian means all of the Luwian languages. Other linguists, following Melchert, prefer to use Luwic for the branch, the name Luwian comes from the name of the land, Luwiya, where the speakers lived. It is mentioned in the Hittite laws, the region was later called Lydia. Luwian is closely related to Hittite, Luwian has been deduced as one of the likely candidates for the language spoken by the Trojans. Some fringe hypotheses rejected by historical linguistics are a relationship with Lemnian, a Thracian connection. According to James Mellaart, the earliest Indo-Europeans in northwest Anatolia were the horse-riders who came to this region from the north and they were ancestors of the Luwians who inhabited Troy II, and spread widely in the Anatolian peninsula. He cited the distribution of a new type of pottery, Red Slip Wares. According to Mellaart, the migrations to Anatolia came in several distinct waves over many centuries. The current trend is to see such migrations as mostly peaceful, Luwian was among the languages spoken during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC by groups in central and western Anatolia and northern Syria. In the Old Hittite version of the Hittite Code, some, if not all, widmer has argued that the Mycenaean term ru-wa-ni-jo, attested in Linear B, refers to the same area. In the post-Hittite era, the region of Arzawa came to be known as Lydia, the name Lydia has been derived from the name Luwiya, which further argues in favour of the location of Luwiya in the west. Beginning in the 14th century BC, Luwian-speakers came to constitute the majority in the Hittite capital Hattusa and it appears that by the time of the collapse of the Hittite Empire ca.1180 BC, the Hittite king and royal family were fully bilingual in Luwian. Cuneiform Luwian is a term refers to the corpus of Luwian texts attested in the tablet archives of Hattusa. In Laroches Catalog of Hittite Texts, the corpus of Hittite cuneiform texts with Luwian insertions runs from CTH 757–773, Cuneiform Luwian texts are written in several dialects, of which the most easily identifiable are Kizzuwatna Luwian, Istanuwa Luwian, and Empire Luwian. The last dialect represents the vernacular of Hattusan scribes of the 14th–13th centuries BC and is attested through Glossenkeil words in Hittite texts. Hieroglyphic Luwian is a term refers to the corpus of Luwian texts written in a native script
35.
Assyria
–
Assyria was a major Mesopotamian East Semitic-speaking kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East and the Levant. Centered on the Tigris in Upper Mesopotamia, the Assyrians came to rule powerful empires at several times. Assyria is named after its capital, the ancient city of Aššur. In the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Assyrian kings were pastoral leaders, Assyria can also refer to the geographic region or heartland where Assyria, its empires and the Assyrian people were centered. The indigenous modern Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrian Christian ethnic minority in northern Iraq, north east Syria, southeast Turkey, in prehistoric times, the region that was to become known as Assyria was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria were the Jarmo culture c.7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, during the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians throughout Mesopotamia, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian, and vice versa, is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a scale, to syntactic, morphological. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium BC as a sprachbund and it is highly likely that the city was named in honour of its patron Assyrian god with the same name. The city of Aššur, together with a number of other Assyrian cities, however it is likely that they were initially Sumerian-dominated administrative centres. In the late 26th century BC, Eannatum of Lagash, then the dominant Sumerian ruler in Mesopotamia, similarly, in c. the early 25th century BC, Lugal-Anne-Mundu the king of the Sumerian state of Adab lists Subartu as paying tribute to him. Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is known, in the Assyrian King List, the earliest king recorded was Tudiya. According to Georges Roux he would have lived in the mid 25th century BC, Tudiya was succeeded on the list by Adamu, the first known reference to the Semitic name Adam and then a further thirteen rulers. The earliest kings, such as Tudiya, who are recorded as kings who lived in tents, were independent semi-nomadic pastoralist rulers and these kings at some point became fully urbanised and founded the city state of Ashur in the mid 21st century BC. During the Akkadian Empire, the Assyrians, like all the Mesopotamian Semites, became subject to the dynasty of the city state of Akkad, the Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon the Great claimed to encompass the surrounding four quarters. Assyrian rulers were subject to Sargon and his successors, and the city of Ashur became an administrative center of the Empire. On those tablets, Assyrian traders in Burushanda implored the help of their ruler, Sargon the Great, the name Hatti itself even appears in later accounts of his grandson, Naram-Sin, campaigning in Anatolia. Assyrian and Akkadian traders spread the use of writing in the form of the Mesopotamian cuneiform script to Asia Minor, the Akkadian Empire was destroyed by economic decline and internal civil war, followed by attacks from barbarian Gutian people in 2154 BC. The rulers of Assyria during the period between c.2154 BC and 2112 BC once again fully independent, as the Gutians are only known to have administered southern Mesopotamia
36.
Achaeans (Homer)
–
The Achaeans constitute one of the collective names for the Greeks in Homers Iliad and Odyssey. In the historical period, the Achaeans were the inhabitants of the region of Achaea, the city-states of this region later formed a confederation known as the Achaean League, which was influential during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. The Homeric long-haired Achaeans would have been a part of the Mycenaean civilization that dominated Greece from circa 1600 BC until 1100 BC, later, by the Archaic and Classical periods, the term Achaeans referred to inhabitants of the much smaller region of Achaea. Herodotus identified the Achaeans of the northern Peloponnese as descendants of the earlier, according to Pausanias, writing in the 2nd century CE, the term Achaean was originally given to those Greeks inhabiting the Argolis and Laconia. Pausanias and Herodotus both recount the legend that the Achaeans were forced from their homelands by the Dorians, during the legendary Dorian invasion of the Peloponnese and they then moved into the region later called Achaea. A scholarly consensus has not yet been reached on the origin of the historic Achaeans relative to the Homeric Achaeans and is hotly debated. Karl Beloch suggested there was no Dorian invasion, but rather that the Peloponnesian Dorians were the Achaeans, eduard Meyer, disagreeing with Beloch, instead put forth the suggestion that the real-life Achaeans were mainland pre-Dorian Greeks. His conclusion is based on his research on the similarity between the languages of the Achaeans and pre-historic Arcadians and his conclusions at the time were challenged by other Hittitologists, as well as by Ferdinand Sommer, who published his Die Ahhijava-Urkunden in 1932. Some Hittite texts mention a nation lying to the west called Ahhiyawa, in the earliest reference to this land, a letter outlining the treaty violations of the Hittite vassal Madduwatta, it is called Ahhiya. It also refers to an earlier Wilusa episode involving hostility on the part of Ahhiyawa, Ahhiya has been identified with the Achaeans of the Trojan War and the city of Wilusa with the legendary city of Troy. It has been proposed that Ekwesh of the Egyptian records may relate to Achaea, whereas Denyen, Tanaju is also listed in an inscription at the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III. The latter ruled Egypt in circa 1382–1344 BC, moreover, a list of the cities and regions of the Tanaju is also mentioned in this inscription, among the cities listed are Mycenae, Nauplion, Kythera, Messenia and the Thebaid. During the 5th year of Pharaoh Merneptah, a confederation of Libyan, included amongst the ethnic names of the repulsed invaders is the Ekwesh or Eqwesh, whom some have seen as Achaeans, although Egyptian texts specifically mention these Ekwesh to be circumcised. Homer mentions an Achaean attack upon the delta, and Menelaus speaks of the same in Book IV of the Odyssey to Telemachus when he recounts his own home from the Trojan War. Later Greek myths also say Helen had spent the time of the Trojan War in Egypt, and not at Troy, cadmus from Phoenicia, Danaus from Egypt, and Pelops from Anatolia each gained a foothold in mainland Greece and were assimilated and Hellenized. Sons of Hellen and the nymph Orseis were Dorus, Xuthos, sons of Xuthos and Kreousa, daughter of Erechthea, were Ion and Achaeus. According to Hyginus,22 Achaeans killed 362 Trojans during their ten years at Troy, according to Margalit Finkelberg, the name Ἀχαιοί/Ἀχαιϝοί is derived from Hittite Aḫḫiyawā. However, Robert S. P. Beekes doubted the validity of this derivation, the etymology of Danaoi is uncertain, according to Beekes the name is certainly Pre-Greek
37.
Kizzuwatna
–
Kizzuwatna, is the name of an ancient Anatolian kingdom in the 2nd millennium BC. It was situated in the highlands of southeastern Anatolia, near the Gulf of İskenderun in modern-day Turkey and it encircled the Taurus Mountains and the Ceyhan river. The center of the kingdom was the city of Kummanni, situated in the highlands, in a later era, the same region was known as Cilicia. The country possessed valuable resources, such as mines in the Taurus Mountains. The slopes of the range are still partly covered by woods. Annual winter rains made agriculture possible in the area at an early date. The plains at the course of the Ceyhan river provided rich cultivated fields. Several ethnic groups coexisted in the Kingdom of Kizzuwatna, the Hurrians inhabited this area at least since the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. The Hittite expansion in the early Old Kingdom period was likely to bring the Hittites, the Luwian language was part of the Indo-European language group, with close ties to the Hittite language. Both the local Hittites and the Luwians were likely to contribute to the formation of independent Kizzuwatna after the weakening of the Hittite Old Kingdom. The toponym Kizzuwatna is possibly a Luwian adaptation of Hittite *kez-udne country on this side, while the name Isputahsu is definitely Hittite, Hurrian culture became more prominent in Kizzuwatna once it entered the sphere of influence of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni. Puduhepa, queen of the Hittite king Hattusili III, came from Kizzuwatna and their pantheon was also integrated into the Hittite one, and the goddess Hebat of Kizzuwatna became very important in Hittite religion towards the end of the 13th century BC. A corpus of texts called the Kizzuwatna rituals was discovered at Hattusa. King Sargon of Akkad claimed to have reached the Taurus mountains in the 23rd century BC, however, archaeology has yet not confirmed any Akkadian influence in the area. The trade routes from Assyria to the karum in the Anatolian highlands went through Kizzuwatna by the early 2nd millennium BC, the kings of Kizzuwatna of the 2nd millennium BC had frequent contact with the Hittites to the north. The earliest Hittite records seem to refer to Kizzuwatna and Arzawa collectively as Luwia, in the power struggle that arose between the Hittites and the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni, Kizzuwatna became a strategic partner due to its location. Isputahsu made a treaty with the Hittite king Telepinu, later, Kizzuwatna shifted its allegiance, perhaps due to a new ruling dynasty. The city state of Alalakh to the south expanded under its new vigorous leader Idrimi, king Pilliya of Kizzuwatna had to sign a treaty with Idrimi
38.
Hittites
–
The Hittites were an Ancient Anatolian people who established an empire centered on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia around 1600 BC. Between the 15th and 13th centuries BC the Hittite Empire came into conflict with the Egyptian Empire, Middle Assyrian Empire, the Assyrians eventually emerged as the dominant power and annexed much of the Hittite empire, while the remainder was sacked by Phrygian newcomers to the region. They referred to their land as Hatti. The conventional name Hittites is due to their identification with the Biblical Hittites in 19th century archaeology. Before the discoveries, the source of information about Hittites had been the Old Testament. Francis William Newman expressed the view, common in the early 19th century. Uriah was a captain in King Davids army and counted among one of his mighty men in 1 Chronicles 11, french scholar Félix Marie Charles Texier discovered the first Hittite ruins in 1834, but did not identify them as Hittite. The first archaeological evidence for the Hittites appeared in tablets found at the Assyrian colony of Kültepe, some names in the tablets were neither Hattic nor Assyrian, but clearly Indo-European. The script on a monument at Boğazköy by a People of Hattusas discovered by William Wright in 1884 was found to match peculiar hieroglyphic scripts from Aleppo, in 1887, excavations at Tell El-Amarna in Egypt uncovered the diplomatic correspondence of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his son Akhenaton. Shortly after this, Archibald Sayce proposed that Hatti or Khatti in Anatolia was identical with the kingdom of Kheta mentioned in these Egyptian texts, as well as with the biblical Hittites. Others, such as Max Müller, agreed that Khatti was probably Kheta, sayces identification came to be widely accepted over the course of the early 20th century, and the name Hittite has become attached to the civilization uncovered at Boğazköy. He also proved that the ruins at Boğazköy were the remains of the capital of an empire that, at one point, under the direction of the German Archaeological Institute, excavations at Hattusa have been under way since 1907, with interruptions during the world wars. Kültepe was successfully excavated by Professor Tahsin Özgüç from 1948 until his death in 2005, the Hittites used Mesopotamian Cuneiform script. The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, Turkey houses the richest collection of Hittite, the Hittite kingdom was centred on the lands surrounding Hattusa and Neša, known as the land Hatti. For example, the reward for the capture of a slave after he managed to flee beyond the Halys is higher than that for a slave caught before he could reach the river. To the west and south of the core territory lay the region known as Luwiya in the earliest Hittite texts and this terminology was replaced by the names Arzawa and Kizzuwatna with the rise of those kingdoms. Nevertheless, the Hittites continued to refer to the language originated in these areas as Luwian. Prior to the rise of Kizzuwatna, the heart of territory in Cilicia was first referred to by the Hittites as Adaniya
39.
Arzawa
–
Arzawa in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC was the name of a region and a political entity in Western Anatolia. The core of Arzawa is believed to have located along the Kestros River, with its capital at Apasa. It was the state of the Assuwa league, which also included parts of western Anatolia. Arzawa was the neighbour and rival of the Middle and New Hittite Kingdoms. On the other hand, it was in contact with the Ahhiyawa of the Hittite texts. Moreover, Achaeans and Arzawa formed a coalition against the Hittites, according to Hittite sources, the capital of the Kingdom of Arzawa was Apasa, corresponding with later Greek Ephesus. The languages spoken in Arzawa during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age cannot be determined due to the paucity of indigenous written sources. The zenith of the kingdom was during the 15th and 14th centuries BC, the Hittites were then weakened, and Arzawa was an ally of Egypt. According to Hittite records, in c.1320 BC Arzawa joined an alliance together with the region of Millawanta under the king of Ahhijawa. As a response of this initiative, the Hittite kings Suppiluliuma I, the king of Arzawa managed to escape to Mycenaean controlled territory. Arzawa was then split by the Hittites into vassal kingdoms and these were called, Kingdom of Mira, Hapalla, Seha river land. Seha river is now believed to be the present-day Gediz River, also, Mursilis son Muwatalli added Wilusa as a vassal. In 1998, J. David Hawkins succeeded in reading the Karabel relief inscription, located at the Karabel pass and this has provided evidence that the kingdom of Mira was actually south of the Seha river land, thus locating the latter along the Gediz River. These kingdoms, usually termed simply as lands in Hittite registers, there has been evidence from a British expedition in 1954 to Beycesultan in inner western Anatolia which suggests that the local king had central heating in his home. Nothing more was heard from this invention until Gaius Sergius Orata reinvented it in Ancient Rome around 80 BC, kupanta-Kurunta c. 1440s BC Madduwatta of Zippasla c. 1420s BC Tarhundaradu c. 1370s BC Anzapahhadu c
40.
Mitanni
–
Mitanni, also called Hanigalbat in Assyrian or Naharin in Egyptian texts, was a Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and southeast Anatolia from ca.1500 BC–1300 BC. Mitanni came to be a regional power after the Hittite destruction of Amorite Babylon, at the beginning of its history, Mitannis major rival was Egypt under the Thutmosids. However, with the ascent of the Hittite empire, Mitanni, the Mitanni dynasty ruled over the northern Euphrates-Tigris region between c.1475 and c.1275 BC. Eventually, Mitanni succumbed to Hittite and later Assyrian attacks, and was reduced to the status of a province of the Middle Assyrian Empire. While the Mitanni kings were Indo-Iranians, they used the language of the people which was at that time a non Indo-Iranian language. Their sphere of influence is shown in Hurrian place names, personal names and the spread through Syria, the Mitanni controlled trade routes down the Khabur to Mari and up the Euphrates from there to Charchamesh. For a time also controlled the Assyrian territories of the upper Tigris and its headwaters at Nineveh, Arbil, Assur. To the east, they had relations with the Kassites. The land of Mitanni in northern Syria extended from the Taurus mountains to its west and as far east as Nuzi, in the south, it extended from Aleppo across to Mari on the Euphrates in the east. Its centre was in the Khabur River valley, with two capitals, Taite and Washshukanni called Taidu and Ushshukana respectively in Assyrian sources, the whole area allows agriculture without artificial irrigation, cattle, sheep and goats were raised. It is very similar to Assyria in climate, and was settled by both indigenous Hurrian and Amoritic-speaking populations, the Mitanni kingdom was referred to as the Maryannu, Nahrin or Mitanni by the Egyptians, the Hurri by the Hittites, and the Hanigalbat by the Assyrians. The different names seem to have referred to the kingdom and were used interchangeably. Hittite annals mention a people called Hurri, located in northeastern Syria, a Hittite fragment, probably from the time of Mursili I, mentions a King of the Hurri. The Assyro-Akkadian version of the text renders Hurri as Hanigalbat, Tushratta, who styles himself king of Mitanni in his Akkadian Amarna letters, refers to his kingdom as Hanigalbat. Egyptian sources call Mitanni nhrn, which is pronounced as Naharin/Naharina from the Assyro-Akkadian word for river. The name Mitanni is first found in the memoirs of the Syrian wars of the astronomer and clockmaker Amenemhet. The ethnicity of the people of Mitanni is difficult to ascertain, a treatise on the training of chariot horses by Kikkuli contains a number of Indo-Aryan glosses. Kammenhuber suggested that this vocabulary was derived from the still undivided Indo-Iranian language, the common peoples language, the Hurrian language, is neither Indo-European nor Semitic
41.
Hayasa-Azzi
–
The Hayasa-Azzi confederation was in conflict with the Hittite Empire in the 14th century BC, leading up to the collapse of Hatti around 1190 BC. Hittite inscriptions deciphered in the 1920s by the Swiss scholar Emil Forrer testify to the existence of a mountain country, several prominent authorities agree in placing Azzi to the north of Ishuwa. Others see Hayasa and Azzi as identical, records of the time between Telipinu and Tudhaliya III are sketchy. The Hittites seem to have abandoned their capital at Hattusa and moved to Sapinuwa under one of the earlier Tudhaliya kings, in the early 14th century BC, Sapinuwa was burned as well. Hattusili III records at this time that the Azzi had made Samuha its frontier and it should be borne in mind that people who view themselves as great civilizations are not always too particular about which group of so-called Barbarians they are fighting. Also at times multiple atrocities are blamed on one group as a cry for a current war. Samuha was, however, temporarily seized by forces from the country of Azzi, at this time, the kingdom of Hatti was so besieged by fierce attacks from its enemies that many neighbouring powers expected it to soon collapse. The Egyptian pharaoh, Amenhotep III, even wrote to Tarhundaradu, king of Arzawa, I have heard that everything is finished and that the country of Hattusa is paralysed. However, Tudhaliya managed to rally his forces, indeed, the speed and determination of the Hittite king may have surprised Hattis enemies including the Kaska and Azzi-Hayasa. Tudhaliya sent his general Suppiluliuma, who would serve as king himself under the title Suppiluliuma I, to Hattis northeastern frontiers. The Hayasans initially retreated from a battle with the Hittite commander. The Hittitologist Trevor R. Bryce notes, however, that Tudhaliya and Suppiluliuma eventually, invaded Azzi-Hayasa, the passage recording the outcome of this battle is missing. The Hayasans were now obliged to repatriate all captured Hittite subjects, despite the restrictions imposed upon Hakkani, he was not a completely meek and submissive brother-in law of the Hittites in political and military affairs. As a condition for the release of the thousands of Hittite prisoners held in his domain, during their reigns, the cuneiform tablets of Boğazköy begin to mention the names of three successive kings who ruled over a state of Hayasa and/or Azzi. They were Karanni, Mariya, and Hakkani, when Suppiluliuma had become king himself, Hakkani proceeded to marry Suppiluliumas sister. Well, there is a law in the land of the Hatti, do not approach sisters, your sisters-in law or your cousins, that is not permitted. In Hatti Land, whosoever commits such an act does not live, in your country, you do not hesitate to marry your own sister, sister-in law or cousin, because you are not civilized. Such an act cannot be permitted in Hatti, the kingdom of Hayasa-Azzi remained a loyal Hittite vassal state for a time, perhaps hit by the same plague which claimed Suppiluliuma and his son Arnuwanda II
