User:Vidimian/Turkish history

=Ancient Anatolia= Anatolia or Asia Minor, a peninsula in the westernmost extension of Asia that constitutes much of the territory of modern Turkey, has a long history.

Understand
Thanks to its location connecting Europe and Asia, hence on the migration routes of early humans emerging out of Africa, Anatolia was the scene of the earliest settlements known to the date. The peninsula also had an important role during the agricultural revolution, with wild varieties of some of the common foodstuffs, such as that of wheat, first being domesticated and cultivated in the rolling Anatolian plateau, which later gave rise to the earliest sedentary communities. According to a hypothesis, the peninsula was the original homeland of the Indo-European speakers.

The prehistory of Asia Minor is marked by solitary sites of human habitation (or relics thereof). In the following Bronze and Iron Ages, the earliest organized societies emerged, often in the form of kingdoms. The artefacts retrieved from the archaeological sites unsurorisingly get more sophisticated as time progressed, both in terms of external appearance and purpose, as beautifully shown by the exhibition of the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.



Prehistory
Few prehistoric sites in Turkey are relatively easy to access and have some sort of visitor office. The Yarımburgaz Cave in the suburbs of Istanbul, for example, is in the middle of a rough neighbourhood, and its opening is competely barred up, despite being an extremely important site in terms of prehistoric archaeology.

Hittites


The Hittites appeared out of unclear origins in the northern Anatolian plateau during the Bronze Age.

They formed a definable governance — the earliest kingdom in Anatolia — in about 1600 BC, contemporary with Ancient Egypt, with whom they conducted an uneasy relationship.

Their best preserved ruins are in, their capital. A number of associated sites are scattered across Anatolia as well as in neighbouring countries. For an in-depth description and detailed listings, see the dedicated article.

Carians
chro order


 * Rhodian Peraia - Bozburun
 * Carian Way
 * Aphrodisias - Caria - Geyre
 * Alabanda - uncertain
 * Mylasa - too Roman?
 * Amos - too Hellenistic?
 * Loryma
 * Bodrum - Halicarnassus - Ada
 * Alinda - Ada
 * Madnasa - Gölköy
 * Caryanda
 * Myndos - Gümüşlük - wine
 * Iasos
 * Euromus
 * Idyma, Akyaka - also to the destination article

Lycians
The Lycians were the natives of Lycia, a large peninsula extending into the Mediterranean in southwest Anatolia, speaking one of the indigenous Anatolian languages and writing it in their own alphabet. In their early history, they were probably allied with the Hittites; later on, the independent city states of Lycia formed the Lycian League, which is considered an early federal democracy.

Greeting any would-be invaders to their mountainous land fiercely, the Lycians were so proudly independent that they repeatedly burnt down their cities to the ground, along with the inhabitants themselves, rather than let them be occupied by foreigners. It was out of the respect for this pride that the succesful invaders, rather few in number, including Alexander the Great and the Romans, granted autonomy for Lycia.

Nowadays the Lycians are mostly remembered for the impressive mausoleums they carved into the mountain sides and the sarcophagi scattered across their once remote and impassable territory, which in an irony of fate is now one of the backbones of Turkish tourism industry, and one of the best travelled areas in the country.




 * Patara?
 * Simena - Kaleköy - Sunken City
 * Myra
 * Olympos
 * Limyra Bridge
 * The Lycian Way is a modern hiking trail treading ancient Lycia from one end to the other, providing access to the ruins otherwise hard or impossible to get to. Along its course, it partially takes advantage of the ancient paths.
 * The Lycian Way is a modern hiking trail treading ancient Lycia from one end to the other, providing access to the ruins otherwise hard or impossible to get to. Along its course, it partially takes advantage of the ancient paths.



Pisidians
The Pisidian land rested on the fastness of the western reaches of the Taurus Mountains, flanking the Mediterranean coast. The Pisidians were present here already in the 14th century BCE, contemporary with the Hittites, who recorded their land as Salawassa (which later morphed to Sagalassos, see below). There is little remained from the Pisidian language, only short inscriptions written in a variant of the Greek alphabet, but it was likely within the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European languages and closely related to Lycian. Throughout their history, the Pisidians stayed fiercely independent; at Termessos, they gave Alexander the Great a rare taste of defeat, but eventually adopted Greek culture by about the 2nd century BCE. Later, their land changed hands between several Hellenistic dynasties and was eventually absorbed into the Roman Empire.

The header is in correct chronological order?


 * Termessos
 * Sagalassos
 * Selge
 * Adada?

Phrygians
Few people never heard about at least one of the Gordian Knot, Midas "the Golden Touch", Phrygian cap, and Phrygian mode, but their originators, the Phrygians remain a mystery.

Speaking a language similar to Greek and writing it in a script superficially resembling the Greek one, the Phrygians were probably immigrants from the Balkans, displacing the Hittites and settling in Western Anatolia in the 12th century BCE. At their kingdom's peak, they engaged in warfare with as far east as the Urartians and Assyrians. However, the 7th century BCE saw a watershed moment: after the capital Gordion was sacked by the Cimmerians from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe (what is now Ukraine), the Phrygian kingdom fell to the Lydians and lost its distinctive polity. In the following centuries, Phrygia was successively overrun by the Persian and Alexander the Great's armies, and the Celts arriving from the northwest sealed the deal. Thenceforth, the land was named Galatia after them, keeping this name on when it eventually became a Roman province.

In addition to their quintessential caps, the Phrygians might be the inventors of socks — the English word is thought to be ultimately loaned from Phrygian, through Greek and Latin. It will quickly dawn on you why they bothered if you visit their homeland over the Anatolian highland in the dead of winter.


 * Gordion
 * Pessinus
 * Phrygian Valley
 * Yazılıkaya
 * Cilandiras

Lydians
The Lydians are best known as the earliest civilization that minted coins in the form as we know today and for their legendary ruler Croesus, whose name is an ancient synonym for extreme wealth — who else but the inventors of "money" could have such a king, after all? They had an empire in Western Anatolia, inland from the Aegean Sea, between the 15th and 6th centuries BCE, that sparkled after the Phrygians waned. Their empire later fell to the Persians.



Urartu
Inhabitants of the eastern highlands, the Urartians founded a distinctive Iron Age civilization between the 9th and 6th centuries BC around Lake Van — they left a legacy of greatly decorated iron artwork. They spoke a language unrelated to any other, except Hurrian which was spoken in neighbouring Mesopotamia.


 * Tuşba
 * Çavuştepe

Understand
While there was a minor previous Turkic presence in Asia Minor (mainly Turcopoles, Christianized Turkic mercenaries recruited by the Byzantine and later the Crusader States armies), the massive Turkish settlement began after the 1071 Battle of Manzikert, fought near Muş in Eastern Anatolia and culminated in a victory of the Seljuk emperor Alparslan over the Eastern Roman/Byzantine emperor Romanus IV Diogenes.

The Sultanate of Rum seceded from the Seljuk Empire six years after Manzikert. Rum in its name referred to Rome, which was taken to mean the Roman/Byzantine Empire in general or Asia Minor in particular in the Islamic world at that time. The sultans based themselves for a short while in İznik, previously and consequently a major Byzantine stronghold in the west, then in Konya in the central plateau, and continued the highly Persianate cultural tradition of the Seljuks they sprang from. They eventually subjugated the other contemporary Turkish dynasties formed in Anatolia, chiefly in the east.

During the First, Second, and Third Crusades, the sultanate was one of the main adversaries of the Crusaders pouring in from Europe on the way to the Holy Land.

The sultanate promoted art, science, and philosophy — Sufi mystic Rumi, deriving his sobriquet after the sultanate, took up residence in the capital — and faciliated trade across the routes criss-crossing Anatolia. They left behind a legacy of mosques, madrasas, and caravanserais, all characteristically embellished by turquoise tiles and incorporating majestic portals with elaborately carved details similar to those found in Iran, but with Byzantine and particularly local Armenian influence. Later, this architectural style was adapted by the Sultanate of Delhi, the predecessors of the Mughal Empire.

In 1243, the Mongolians marched on. After losing the Battle of Kösedağ, held near Sivas that year, the sultanate formally became a vassal to the Mongolians, in effect collapsed in all but name. Following half a century of chaos, several statelets collectively known as the Anatolian beyliks emerged in the power vacuum left behind.

While paying homage to the earlier Turkic states founded elsewhere (mainly in Central Asia and Iran) and the earlier civilizations that called Asia Minor home, modern Turks often see the sultanate as the earliest incarnation of their country — the land has been called "Turkey" or its variations (Tourkia, Turchia) by the outsiders since the sultanate's appearance, and the last time that name entirely ceased to exist on the maps was during the Mongol invasion following the Battle of Kösedağ.

In general usage in Turkey, Selçuklu or "Seljuk" without any qualifiers refers to this polity, not the identically-named greater empire which had its heartland in Iran.

Major centres

 * İznik. The initial seat of the sultanate was held for less than two decades before the Byzantines reseized it. Therefore little remained from the period, and the sites that did, such as İsmail Bey Hamam, were rebuilt by the latter Ottomans. The town is nevertheless interesting and boasts a much larger heritage from the Romans, Byzantines, and Ottomans.
 * Konya. The main seat is home to a much larger legacy from the sultanate — many buildings constructed by them are major attractions. If you have to pick any spot to experience the Rum heritage, make it this one.
 * Beyşehir - summer palace
 * Alanya.
 * Kayseri.
 * Tokat - Gök Medrese? 1270, vassal years (or beylik?)
 * Sivas.
 * Sinop?
 * Battalgazi. The historic core of Malatya is home to the 12xx Great Mosque, with a central courtyard — the only one of its kind in Turkey — as well as a caravanserai (Seljuk?).
 * Erzurum.

Caravanserais
The sultanate went to great lengths to ensure trade is safe and trouble-free across their dominion, so built a sizeable number of caravanserais along the main routes. These medival motels were often way out of any significantly populated community, and service towns around them developed only later. Some of the caravanserais, ordered in a line extending from Denizli in the southwest to Doğubayazıt in the east are collectively in the tentative list of the UNESCO World Heritage. The following are the best preserved:


 * Sultanhan

Contesting dynasties
These were independent for a time following the Battle of Manzikert and autonomous to a degree afterwards, so their heritage exhibits a greater influence from the local cultures.


 * Saltukids - Tercan
 * Saltukids - Tercan
 * Saltukids - Tercan
 * Saltukids - Tercan
 * Saltukids - Tercan

Talk
Persian was not only the language of governance, literature, and education, but also the daily language among many in the elite, despite being of Turkic stock. Turkish, the vernacular, could become an official language only in the successive beylik period.

Written exclusively in the Greek alphabet, Karamanlides, a form of Turkish spoken by a Greek Orthodox population (who might or might not be the descendants of the Turcopoles) around Karaman until the 1920s population exchange with Greece, was probably developed during the years of the sultanate.

Understand
With the expansion of the Mongol Empire into their homeland in Central Asia and the subsequent chaos, several tribes of the Oghuz Turks headed west, crossing the Caspian Sea along its southern rim. Some decided to settle in Khorasan and elsewhere in Persia, but most proceeded into Anatolia, then ruled by the Sultanate of Rum, founded by their Seljuk-Oghuz kindred in the previous centuries.

The Seljuk policy towards the tribes fleeing the Mongol hordes was to settle them along the borderlands of their kingdom, both to keep these unruly nomads away from the Seljuk policy centres, and also to keep the borders secure from unwanted incursions by using them as a first line of defence — an analogue in medieval Europe are the marchlands. The new folk was also provided with autonomy in their tribal affairs, as long as they accepted the supreme sovereignty of the sultan in Konya.

However, the Mongols further expanded westwards, and were soon at the doorstep of Anatolia, hitherto assumed to be safe from them. After the Battle of Kösedağ, which took place east of Sivas in 1243, the Sultanate of Rum collapsed. During the disorder and power vacuum that followed, the beys proclaimed their sovereignty one after another and these petty kingdoms emerged. All vied for subsuming others and establishing a pax beylika of their own, but it was the Ottomans among them eventually coming out victorious: the patchwork on the Anatolian maps persisted into the 17th century, when the last sovereign principality was annexed by the Ottomans. Some families descended from the beys kept their influence in Turkey until the 1950s, well after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the foundation of the Turkish Republic.

Despite their limited resources and the short and turbulent period in which they existed, most principalities championed development and art in the areas they ruled over, which is still evident especially in the communities away from the major centres of the consequent Ottoman era and present day. Their architectural heritage is uniquely in a post-Seljuk, pre-Ottoman transitionary style.

In Turkish, each of these emirates is generally named after the conventionally known founder of the dynasty plus -oğlu or -oğulları ("son/s of -"). These names sometimes find their way into the English usage.

Destinations
Since the beyliks were founded along the borders and coastlines of the Sultanate of Rum, which had its heartland in Central Anatolia, it's easy to group the major destinations of the period history geographically.

Eastern Anatolia
Eastern Anatolia was the home of a number of petty kingdoms that, unlike the others elsewhere in Anatolia, flourished before the Mongol invasion, mainly in the 12th and 13th centuries. These are more intertwined into the history of the Sultanate of Rum, still going strong at that time, so they are covered in the article for the sultanate.

Talk
"From now on nobody in the palace, in the high government, in the council, and in a wander shall speak no language other than Turkish."

- Mehmet Bey of Karaman, declaring Turkish to be the official language first time in Anatolia with his decree dated May 13, 1277

Old Anatolian Turkish, the medieval form of Turkish was the vernacular of the era. Yunus Emre (1238–1328), considered the national poet of Turkey, wrote in this language. Unlike Ottoman Turkish of the palace in the intervening Ottoman period, Old Anatolian Turkish is easy to understand by the modern speakers.