TIMELINE AND HISTORY OF ASIA MINOR (ANATOLIA)

Anatolia (Turkish: Anadolu), better known in the history by the name of Asia Minor, is considered to be the westernmost extent of Western Asia. Geographically it encompasses the central uplands of modern Turkey, from the coastal plain of the Aegean Sea east to the mountains on the Armenian border and from the narrow coast of the Black Sea south to the Taurus Mountains and Mediterranean coast.

The earliest representations of culture in Anatolia can be found in several archaeological sites located in the central and eastern part of the region.

The prehistory period of Anatolia stretches from 1.2 million years ago through to the appearance of classical civilisation in the middle of the 1^st 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 and Iron Age. The term Copper Age (Chalcolithic) is used to denote the period straddling the stone and Bronze Ages.

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 artefacts such as animal bones and food fossils were found at Burdur (north of Antalya). Although the origins of some of the earliest peoples are shrouded in mystery, the remnants of Bronze Age civilizations such as the Hattian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Hittite peoples provide us with many examples of the daily lives of its citizens and their trade. 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 prehistoric period in which stone was widely used in the manufacture of implements. This period occurred after the appearance of the genus Homo about 2.6 million years ago and roughly lasted 2.5 million years to the period between 4,500 and 2,000 BC with the appearance of metalworking. The Stone Age evidence at the territory of the modern Turkey was found in the Gediz River that was securely dated to 1.2 million years ago. 
The evidence of Palaeolithic habitation includes the Yarimburgaz Cave (Istanbul), Karain Cave (Antalya), and the Okuzini, Beldibi and Belbasi, Kumbucagi and Kadiini caves in adjacent areas. Examples of Palaeolithic humans can be found in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations (Ankara), in the Archaeological Museum in Antalya, and in other Turkish institutions. 

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 same caves as the Palaeolithic artefacts and drawings. Additional findings come from the Sarklimagara cave in Gaziantep, the Baradiz cave (Burdur), as well as the cemeteries and open air settlements at Sogut Tarlasi, Biris (Bozova) and Urfa. 
Because of its strategic location at the intersection of Asia and Europe, Anatolia has been the centre of several civilizations since prehistoric times.
Neolithic settlements include Çatalhöyük, Çayönü, Nevali Cori, Aşıklı Höyük, Boncuklu Höyük Hacilar, Göbekli Tepe, Norsuntepe, Kosk, and Mersin.

Chalcolithic (Copper) Age is represented in Anatolia by sites at Hacilar, Beycesultan, Canhasan, Mersin Yumuktepe, Elazig Tepecik, Malatya Degirmentepe, Norsuntepe, and Istanbul Fikirtepe.

Agriculture had come early to Anatolia. By the 8^th century BC farming communities were well established in the region, and some of the earliest towns excavated by archaeologists were located here. Most notably, Catal Huyuk, dating to the 8^th to late 7^th millennia BC, was a large community with an elaborate culture. While not comparable in size or material culture to the cities of Mesopotamia which appeared later, during the 4^th millennium, Catal Huyuk shows that Anatolia was amongst the most progressive parts of the Neolithic world.

In the 4^th and 3^rd millennia BC, the Sumerian cities of Mesopotamia had an ever-expanding appetite for metals - above all, for tin and copper with which to manufacture bronze artefacts. Whereas Mesopotamia itself was poor in such minerals, Anatolia was rich. It was also a plentiful source of precious and semi-precious stones. Important trade routes began to link the Mesopotamia with Anatolia. Trade brought wealth, literacy and urban civilization; it also may have stimulated the endemic warfare that is evident in the fortified towns and villages which spread through Anatolia, and by the prominence given to weapons as grave goods.

The Bronze Age is characterised by the use of copper and its tin alloy, bronze, for manufacturing implements. Asia Minor was one of the first areas to develop bronze making.

Although the first habitation appears to have occurred as early as the 6^th millennium BC during the Chalcolithic period, functioning settlements trading with each other occurred during the 3^rd millennium BC. A settlement on a high ridge would become known as Büyükkaya, and later as the city of Hattush, the centre of this civilization. Later, still, it would become the Hittite stronghold of Hattusha and is now Boğazköy. Remnants of Hattian civilization have been found both under the lower city of Hattusha and in the higher areas of Büyükkaya and Büyükkale. Another settlement was established at Yarikkaya, about 2 km to the northeast.

The discovery of mineral deposits in this part of Anatolia allowed the Anatolians to develop metallurgy, such as the implements found in the royal graves at Alaca Höyük, which it preceded, dating from 2.400-2.200 BC. Other Hattian centres include Hassum, Kanesh, Purushanda, and Zalwar.

During this time the Hattians engaged in trade with city states such as those of Sumer, which needed timber products from the Amanus Mountains.

Anatolia had remained in the prehistoric period until it entered the sphere of influence of the Akkadian Empire in the 24^th century BC under Sargon I, particularly in eastern Anatolia. However the Akkadian Empire suffered problematic climate changes in Mesopotamia, as well as a reduction in available manpower that affected trade. This led to its fall around 2.150 BC at the hands of the Gutians.

The interest of the Akkadians in the region as far as it is known was for exporting various materials for manufacturing. Bronze metallurgy had spread to Anatolia from the Trans-Caucasian Kura-Araxes culture in the late  4^th millennium BC. While Anatolia was well endowed with copper ores, there was no evidence of substantial workings of the tin required to make bronze in Bronze-Age Anatolia.

At the origins of written history, the Anatolian plains inside the area ringed by the Kızılırmak River were occupied by the first defined civilization in Anatolia, a non-Indo-European indigenous people named the Hattians (c. 2500 BC – c. 2000 BC). During the middle Bronze Age, the Hattian civilization, including its capital of Hattus, continued to expand. The Anatolian middle Bronze Age influenced the early Minoan culture of Crete (3400 to 2200 BC) as evidenced by archaeological findings at Knossos.

Sometime at the Late Bronze Age (2000 - 1200 BC) the Hattians came into contact with Assyrians traders from Assur in Mesopotamia such as at Kanesh (Nesha) near modern Kültepe who provided them with the tin needed to make bronze.

In around 2000 BC, further upheaval seems to have spread from the west. This indicates a large-scale migration of peoples from Europe, probably of Indo-European speakers. These may well have been the ancestors of the Hittites and other peoples who were shortly to play a prominent role in Anatolian history.

New towns sprang up on the west coast of Asia Minor. Semi-autonomous colonies of northern Mesopotamian merchants, involved in the metal trade, began to appear in a string of cities stretching from northern Mesopotamia into central Anatolia. This period saw a marked upturn in literacy (based on a cuneiform script), with material culture taking on distinctive Anatolian characteristics. These cultural features were to survive a general upheaval which occurred around 1740 BC, in which several cities in central and eastern Anatolia were destroyed and the Mesopotamian colonies vanished.

By this time, the Hittites and other Indo-European groups were well-established in Anatolia, as well as in other parts of the Middle East. By all evidence they had co-existed peacefully with pre-existing populations. Now, however, they seem to have taken control of the towns in or near where they lived, perhaps taking advantage of a new military technology spreading amongst the Indo-European chiefdoms, the chariot. It is from this period that a strong Hittite kingdom dates. It rapidly expanded over central, southern and eastern Anatolia to form what modern scholars call the Old Hittite Kingdom (c. 1700 – c. 1595 BC).

From the early days of this kingdom, under the first major Hittite king, Hattusilis I (c. 1650-c.1620 BC), it became involved in wars in northern Syria, and also against its western neighbour, the kingdom of Arzawa (about which virtually nothing is known). It was under Hattusilis also that the Hittites established their capital at Hattusa.

The end of Hattusilis’ reign was marked by quarrels with and between his sons, and the succession went eventually to his grandson, Mursilis (c. 1620-1595 BC). It was this king who led an army 800 km (500 ml) down the Euphrates and sacked Babylon in 1595 BC. On his return to Hattusa, laden with booty, Mursilis was assassinated in a family conspiracy, and the kingdom fell into disarray.

This troubled period was brought to an end by the accession of king Telipinus (c. 1525-c.1500 BC). Under this king the Middle Hittite period began. He issued a famous edict laying down precise rules of succession, so as to avoid the troubles at the end of previous reigns which had so weakened the kingdom in the past. The Edict also referred to an “assembly of citizens” – probably in fact a council of nobles, as in other early Indo-European societies - which was to act as a supreme court in legal matters.
Early in the 14^th century BC, the Hittite kingdom began to revive under king Tudhalyas I. He conquered Arzawa and western Asia Minor, and inflicted a resounding defeat on the Mitanni in Syria, sacking Aleppo, and extending Hittite territory there. In the north, however, a new threat emerged with an invasion by the Kashku tribes. 

After Tudhalyas' death, the Hittite kingdom came under attack from all directions, and even Hattusa, the capital, was sacked by the Kaska. Arzawa was able to regain its independence, and the Hittite kings were hard pressed to maintain their borders intact. 
With the accession of king Suppiluliumas I, at some date around 1350 BC, things began to improve again. Suppiluliumas spent the first few years of his reign consolidating his kingdom’s borders. This included strengthening the defences of the capital, Hattusa, with a massive system of walls.  He then brought Arzawa under Hittite control again, and, most notably, smashed the power of the Mitanni, eliminating them as an independent power. He established firm Hittite control over northern Syria.

By the time of Suppiluliumas’ death, around 1320 BC, the Hittites were recognised as equals by the rulers of Egypt. The tide once again threatened to move against the Hittites, however, as Assyria grew in power and seized land in northern Syria. Arzawa again tried to throw off Hittite control, this time unsuccessfully. The Kaska remained stubbornly resistant to Hittite over lordship, and Egypt tried to extend its sphere of influence into northern Syria.

The Hittites, however, despite being surrounded by enemies, mostly maintained their borders effectively, and in under their king Muwatallis (c. 1295-1272 BC) fought the Egyptians to a draw at the battle of Kadesh (1275). This consolidated the Hittite hold on northern Syria, and in due course led to an alliance between Egypt and the Hittites (c. 1259), demarking their respective spheres of influence in Syria. This alliance kept the power of Assyria in check. 
While the Hittite kingdom was experiencing its triumphs and disasters, western Anatolia had come increasingly under the influence of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations. The city of Miletus, for example, may well have been a Minoan colony, while to its north Troy became an impressive city with palaces, temples, spacious houses and massive encircling walls. 
In the years before 1200 BC, the Hittites seem to have expanded their power into western Asia Minor, perhaps even bringing Troy under their control. However, this era was brought to an end by a mass movement of peoples from the west, which eventually affected all the great kingdoms of the Middle East. 

Phrygian tribes moved into western Asia Minor from Thrace, in Europe, and the Sea Peoples, a group of coastal peoples set in movement by events in Europe, raided Anatolia with such force that the Hittite empire collapsed.

The Hittite domination of Anatolia and northern Syria was replaced by a multitude of small kingdoms and tribes, and those states on the west coast of Asia Minor were overwhelmed by further migrations from the west. In the two centuries leading up to 1000 BC, Greek settlers, driven from their homeland by population movements there, founded many small kingdoms along the western coast of Asia Minor. To the south, these newcomers mainly belonged to a group of the Greeks called the Ionians, while in the north they belonged to the Aeolian group. Central Anatolia became dominated by the Phrygians, at this time divided amongst different tribes; the Kaska remained in the northeast. 
In the southeast of Anatolia and northern Syria, the Luwians, a people closely related to the Hittites, who had been dominated by the Hittites for centuries and who had absorbed Hittite culture, populated a network of small kingdoms which modern scholars have labelled “Neo-Hittite”. It seems that in some cases, including the kingdoms centred on Matalya and Carchemish, the rulers of these Neo-Hittite kingdoms could trace their ancestry back to the old Hittite royal family. Scholars increasingly view these little states as playing an important role in the development of the later Mediterranean civilization.

The material civilization of the Greek settlements on the coast of Asia Minor gradually increased in wealth and sophistication, and by the early 8^th century they had become thriving city-states. The Ionian cities were in fact at the forefront of Greek civilization at this time: the first and greatest of Greek poets, Homer, lived and worked here, and the “Ionian philosophers” pioneered Greek philosophy and science.

Greek colonies, including Sinope and Trapazus, were founded along the southern coast of the Black Sea. On the other hand, the non-Greek peoples of western Anatolia, the Lycians, Carians and Mysians, while having close links with the Greek cities of the coast, remained comparatively aloof from Greek civilization at this time.

By the 8^th century BC the Phrygians had formed a well organised kingdom in central Anatolia, with its centre at Gordium, and during that century expanded over much of Anatolia. The high degree of culture and wealth attained by this kingdom were reflected in the later Greek legend of Midas, king of Phrygia, who was inflicted with the curse that anything he touched turned to gold. In its early days, cultural influences from the east, especially the neo-Hittite kingdoms and Assyria, seem to have been paramount, but by the late 8^th century BC Greek art and architecture were have a major impact. They certainly seem to have acquired their alphabet from the Greeks, in the mid-8^th century BC.
The Phrygians successfully kept the Assyrians at bay, even though the latter gradually extended their control over the Neo-Hittite kingdoms of eastern Anatolia and northern Syria. However, at the beginning of the 7^th century BC the power of the Phrygian kingdom was brought to an end by a destructive invasion from the steppes of central Asia by a nomadic tribe called the Cimmerians.

Another kingdom that arose during the 8^th century BC was that of Urartu, in eastern Anatolia. Originally centred on the shores of Lake Van, it expanded over a sizeable territory to the north of Assyria. Its culture mixed Mesopotamian influences with home-grown features to make a unique civilization. 
Urartu soon represented a major threat to Assyria, and, defended by mountainous terrain and a network of forts, the Assyrians were to find its conquest hard going. Several major Assyrian campaigns were needed to bring Urartu under their control. By the end of the 8^th century BC, however, northern Syria and south eastern Anatolia were under Assyrian rule.

The Cimmerians, having destroyed the power of the Phrygians in 696 - 695, seem to have settled in northern Anatolia, pursuing their traditional nomadic lifestyle and continuing to harass more settled peoples. In the power vacuum that followed the fall of Phrygia, the Lydians came to the fore, and established a powerful kingdom centred on Sardis. Like the Phrygians before them, they also gained in wealth, and have a major claim in history to being the first kingdom to use metal coinage. They had close links with the Greeks on the coast, and their culture was deeply influenced by Greek civilization. The kingdom suffered a major setback when the Cimmerians raided in 652 BC, sacking Sardis and killing the king, Gyges. Further attacks by the Cimmerians and allied Thracian tribes followed, but Lydia was able to survive and, eventually, flourish again.

From the end of the 7^th century BC Lydia exercised a growing hegemony over the Greek cities on the coast. Lydia secured her eastern borders by negotiated a peace treaty with the Medes, who had taken over control of eastern Anatolia from the Assyrians. King Croesus of Lydia (c. 560-546 BC) was so fabulously wealthy that he made a deep impression of the Greeks.

Croesus completed the subjection of the Greek cities in Asia Minor, and had plans to extend his conquests further. However, the appearance of a new power to his east put an end to these ambitions – and to the existence of Lydia as an independent kingdom. 
This power was Persia, which had conquered the Medes. Croesus attacked the Persians, but was swiftly defeated by Cyrus the Great, king of the Persians. Sardis was captured, and all Anatolia was now in Persian hands.

The region came under the rule of powerful satraps, governors appointed by the Persian Great King. Locally, however, the subject peoples retained a large measure of autonomy. They were allowed to keep their own laws and customs, and in most case their own native rulers, now governing as vassals of the Persian overlords. The Greek cities on the whole retained their own republican constitutions, also under Persian over lordship, and even after the defeat of the Ionian revolt of 499 BC, which instigated the Greco-Persian wars; the Greek cities retained their autonomy. 
As a result of these wars, several Greek cities in Asia Minor were liberated from Persian rule in the first half of the 5^th century BC and joined the Athenian-led Delian League. However, after 387 BC, under to the terms of the “King’s Peace” between the leading Greek cities and the Persian Great King, the Greek cities in Asia Minor were came again under Persian rule. 
After 362 BC, the Persian empire was shaken by a civil war within the Persian empire, and after that local autonomy for both the cities and kingdoms of Asia Minor increased to the point where, to all intents and purposes, Persian rule was more theoretical than real. Even the Persian satraps were by this time hereditary rulers owing only loose allegiance to the Great King in distant Iran. 

During the Persian period in Anatolia, Greek cultural influence spread to neighbouring non-Greek peoples in western and southern Asia Minor. Carians, Lycians, Mysians, Pamphylians and Cilicians came under the spell of Greek civilization.  In eastern and northern Asia Minor, Persian cultural influences predominated.

In 334–333 BC the armies of Alexander the Great conquered Anatolia from the Persians. After Alexander's death in 323 BC, and the struggles between Alexander’s generals which followed, Anatolia came to be divided between two of the leading dynasties of the Hellenistic world, the Ptolemais and the Seleucids. The Seleucids gained the upper hand, but their hold on the vassal kingdoms of northern Anatolia, particularly Pontus and Bithynia, quickly loosened.

This process was aided by an invasion of Gauls in 278 BC. This was defeated in 275 BC by a combination of local and Seleucid forces, and the Gauls were settled in a district of central Anatolia which came to be called Galatia. The net result was to weaken Seleucid control still further, and in the middle of the 3^rd century BC Cappadocia and Pergamum became independent kingdoms.

The most ambitious of all Seleucid kings, Antiochus III (223-187 BC), sought to restore Seleucid control over the various states of Anatolia, but his efforts provoked his enemies to seek the aid of the Romans. The Romans were at first reluctant, but when Antiochus crossed into Greece and threatened the Roman sphere of influence there, they intervened against him, and decisively defeated him. 
This ended Seleucid rule in Anatolia, which was now divided amongst various kingdoms. However, although most of Anatolia was now under native dynasties, the region was very much a part of the Hellenistic world. It was dotted with large, Greek-style cities - indeed some, such as Ephesus and Pergamum, were amongst the largest cities of the period - and its people contributed to the Hellenistic civilization of which it was a part. The royal families of the different states were all at least partly Greek or Macedonian in blood, often related to the leading dynasties of the Hellenistic world, the Antigonids of Macedonia, the Seleucids of Syria and Ptolemais of Egypt. They were brought up and educated in Hellenistic ways, and this allowed these rulers to appeal to the loyalties of their many subjects who were Greek in language and culture; but they could also appeal to those of their subjects who retained their Asiatic heritage by presenting themselves in a more Persian guise.
Another feature of this period was the appearance of communities of Jews in the larger cities, clustered round their synagogues.

In 133 BC, Attalus III of Pergamum, having no heirs and wishing to prevent civil war, bequeathed his kingdom to Rome. His kingdom then became the Roman province of Asia. 
Thousands of Roman and Italian merchants, tax collectors and administrators started descending on western Asia Minor. The growing Roman presence in this region provoked intense resentment, and in 88 BC the king of Pontus, Mithridates VI, quickly expanded his power over western Asia Minor, where he was welcomed as a liberator, and organized the massacre of thousands of Roman and Italian merchants and their families. 
This provoked the Romans to war, but, distracted as they were by their own political troubles, they were unable to inflict a decisive defeat on Mithridates. It was not until 63 BC that the Roman general Pompey the Great was able to finally defeat him, and all Asia Minor was brought under Roman rule.

For the first two centuries of the Roman Empire, Anatolia knew almost unbroken peace. This allowed the region to prosper as never before, its trade fostered by the thousands of miles of roads built by the Roman government.  Anatolia was the location for many large and wealthy cities, leading centres of Hellenistic civilization. Romanization made little headway against this glorious cultural heritage at least so far as the spread of the Latin language was concerned. Roman citizenship, however, did spread widely in the cities, and by AD 200 the region had produced many families whose members sat in the Roman senate. 
Many cities of Asia Minor also housed thriving Jewish communities, whose numbers were reinforced after the Jews were excluded from their homeland after the Jewish revolts of AD 66-70 and AD 133. These Jewish communities had initially helped early Christianity to spread rapidly throughout Asia Minor, as can be seen in the New Testament accounts of the missionary activities of St Paul. For a long period Asia Minor probably remained the main centre for this new faith, although Christianity fairly soon broke away from its Jewish roots to become a separate religion.

The 3^rd century saw Asia Minor experience a taste of the chaos visited upon other parts of the empire by Germanic invaders. The Goths attacked the region on three occasions in the years after AD 256, each time committing much destruction. However, these raids were largely local in character, and although major cities were sacked, notably Ephesus in 263, they soon recovered after peace had been restored. 
The 4^th century was a period of renewed stability and prosperity, though perhaps not on the same scale as in the earlier empire. There seems to have been an upswing in brigandage in some parts of the region, most famously by the Isaurians, a people living in the barren wildernesses of south-eastern Asia Minor (these people in fact would produce more than one emperor in future centuries). However, most of the region remained untroubled by this. 
In the later Roman Empire the cities of Asia Minor were leading centres of the new chief religion of the empire, Christianity, and its bishops played a major part in the life of the Christian Church as a whole, their influence spreading well beyond their own region. 
In the 5^th century, Asia Minor, along with most of the rest of the eastern provinces of the empire, escaped the wholesale anarchy visited upon the western provinces. The region was one of the leading centres of Greco-Roman civilization in this period, its cities remaining large and wealthy, and housing a sophisticated, Greek-speaking population and highly educated elite.