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| An Iranian
dynasty named after the legendary founder Achaemenes. The Achaemenid or
Persian Empire was created by Cyrus the Great who overthrew Astyages the
Mede in 550 B.C. At its greatest extent the Empire stretched from the
Balkans to the Indo-Iranian borderlands and included both Mesopotamia
and Egypt. The Empire came to an end with the defeat of Darius III by
Alexander the Great in 330 B.C. |
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King of
Lydia and father of Croesus and Aryenis. He was buried beneath a huge
tumulus (burial mound) that still exists at Bintepeler (Thousand Hills)
by the Lake of Gyges to the north of Sardis, the Lydian capital. |
|
Anatolian
Plateau. (map) |
The central
highlands of modern Turkey. |
A Lydian
princess who was given in marriage to the Median king Astyages by
her father, Alyattes king of Lydia, as part of the peace treaty that
followed the "Battle of the Eclipse". Aryenis was thus a sister of
Croesus. The overthrow of her husband by Cyrus the Great gave Croesus
just reason to cross the Halys River. |
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Last king
of the Median Empire and the builder of Pteria.
Husband of Aryenis and thus brother-in-law
of Croesus, overthrown by Cyrus
the Great c. 550 BC. |
|
According
to Herodotus a war between the Medes and the Lydians was brought to an
end in its sixth year when a fierce battle was dramatically terminated
by a total eclipse of the sun. The battle was followed by a peace treaty
between the two combatants. Modern calculations establish the eclipse
itself took place in the late afternoon of May 28, 585 B.C. There is no
independent source against which Herodotus' account can be checked. |
|
The modern
name for the battle between Croesus and Cyrus the Great that, according
to Herodotus, was fought in the territory of Pteria. The traditional
date is in the late summer or autumn of 547, but this could be a year
or two too early. |
|
Today
Cappadocia is a region of spectacular volcanic landscape, riddled
with rock-cut churches and dwellings, that has justly become a centre
for tourism. The Roman province of Cappadocia, with its capital at
Caesarea Mazaca, later called Caesarea Cappadociae, modern Kayseri;
was, however, much larger. The name Cappadocia most probably owes
its origin to the establishment of the Persian Satrapy (Province)
of Katpatuka which, with a new capital at Mazaca, would presumably
have been a creation of Cyrus the Great in the 540s. If this is correct,
the use of the term Cappadocia by Herodotus in describing events in
the first half of the 6th century is anachronistic. |
|
Today
a region of the northeastern Mediterranean coast in Turkey bounded
by the Taurus Mountains to the north and the Anti-Taurus on the east.
This is a reflection of the Roman Provinces of Rough and Smooth Cilicia.
In the mid First Millennium B.C. Cilicia appears to have been largely
the heir to Late Bronze Age Kizzuwatna and, therefore, to have extended
on to the Central Anatolian Plateau for a considerable distance north
of the Taurus. Following the fall of Assyria (612 B.C.) Cilicia was
nominally under Babylonian control but was ruled by a local kings
who bore the title Syennensis. |
|
Last and
most famous king of ancient Lydia, the richest
man in the ancient world. Brother-in-law of the Median king Astyages.
Defeated by Cyrus the Great, founder
of the Achaemenid dynasty in (traditionally)
547 BC. |
|
King of
the Medes and father of Astyages. It was under Cyaxares' rule that
Median power was extended over part of northern Mesopotamia and Anatolia.
|
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Also known
as Cyrus the Second, he was the first king of the Achaemenid Empire.
He seized power by overthrowing Astyages, the king of the Medes, in
550 B.C. He extended Persian power over all of Anatolia, Mesopotamia
and much of eastern Iran. |
|
One of
the most important oracular temples (temples where the gods could
be questioned) in the ancient Greek world was that dedicated to the
god Apollo at Delphi. The priesthood would have gained great geo-political
knowledge in the course of relaying questions to Apollo and dispensing
the god's answers, and in this way gained considerable influence over
much of the Aegean. That Croesus could hardly have gone to war without
approval from this Greek oracle is an indication of the intensity
of international relations. |
|
The modern
city of Hamadan in central Iran. It was the capital of the Medes and
became the summer residence of the Achaemenids. Herodotus described
the city as being ringed with seven concentric walls, the battlements
of which were coated with gold and silver and various colours, but
this account was probably not meant to be taken literally. Recent
and ongoing excavation is beginning to produce the first archaeological
evidence of its ancient splendour. |
|
Euxine
Sea. |
Literally
the Hospitable Sea (Pontus Euxinus), the Greek name used by Herodotus
for what is now called the Black Sea. |
The modern
Kizilirmak (Red River) rises near Sivas, at the eastern end of the
Central Anatolian Plateau, and makes a great arc through Cappadocia
before turning northwards to eventually flow into the Black Sea. The
Halys formed the eastern boundary of Phrygia in the time of king Midas
(8th century B.C.) and became the boundary between Lydia and Media
according to the peace treaty that followed the "Battle of the Eclipse"
(585 B.C.). It seems possible that, in the first half of the sixth
century B.C., the river also formed a border between Media and Cilicia.
Earlier, in the Second Millennium B.C., the territory within the "Great
Bend of the Halys" was the heartland of Hittite civilisation. |
|
Hittites. |
"The
Hittites came to power in the first half of the Second Millennium
B.C., in the earlier part of the Late Bronze Age. In the 14th century
forces of the Hittite Empire clashed with Egypt for control of North
Syria. The Hittite capital was Hattusha, some 50 km to the northwest
of Kerkenes. The Hittite Empire collapsed sometime after 1200 B.C.
but attempted to re-established itself at Carchemish on the Euphrates
River. In the 9th century B.C. Neo-Hittite states emerged on the Central
Anatolian Plateau and in North Syria. These Neo-Hittite Kingdoms appear
to have all vanished by the 6th century, but on the Central Anatolian
Plateau we are very poorly informed about events and cultures after
the end of the 8th century when inscriptions in hieroglyphic Luwian
(an Indo-European language used by the Hittites for public inscriptions)
cease. |
Greeks
from Iona on the western coast of modern Turkey. The Ionian cities
were said to have been founded by refugees from the Dorian invasions
under their legendary leader Ion at the end of the Late Bronze Age. |
|
The period
between the collapse of the Late Bronze Age (c.1180 BC) and the establishment
of Roman Rule in Asia Minor. |
|
Labynetus
the Babylonian was, according to Herodotus, one of the brokers of
the international peace treaty between the Medes and the Lydians that
followed the "Battle of the Eclipse" (585 B.C.). The name has long
been understood to be the Greek version of Nabonidus, but if this
was the same Nabonidus who was to become King of Babylon there are
problems of chronology that still require full resolution. |
|
An Iron
Age kindom in south-west Turkey. The boundary
between Lydia and the Median Empire was fixed
at the Halys River following the Battle
of the Eclipse. Incorporated into the Achaemenid
Empire after the capture of Sardis by Cyrus
the Great. |
|
An indo-european
people whose capital was at Ectabana, modern
Hamadan in Iran. The Medes together with the Babylonians overthrew
the Assyrian Empire in 612 BC. After the Battle
of the Eclipse in 585 BC the western border of the Median
Empire was fixed at the Halys River. |
|
The empire
of the Medes extending from Iran to the Halys River. |
|
Mount
Daha. |
A mountain
sacred to the Hittites and associated with the city of Zipallanda.
Identified with Kerkenes Dag, Gurney, 1995. |
Nimrud. |
The ancient
Neo-Assyrian city of Kalhu (biblical Calah), on the Tigris River some
30 km south of Mosul in northern Iraq. It was destroyed by the Medes
between 614 and 612 B.C. |
Modern
Mosul in northern Iraq, Nineveh became the largest and most important
Neo-Assyrian royal capital. It was sacked by the combined forces of
the Medes and Baylonians in 612 B.C. Dramatic evidence of the final
assault, in the form of slain humans and animals in the Haizi Gate,
has recently been dug up. The fall of Nineveh effectively ended the
Neo-Assyrian Empire. |
|
The name
of a place in Cappadocia according to Herodotus
and known to have been a Median city by Stephanos
of Byzantium. Thought to be the city on the Kerkenes Dag, Summers, 1997. |
|
Sardis.
(map) |
Modern
Sart in south-west Turkey, capital of Lydia.
After capture by Cyrus the Great in,
traditionally, 547 BC, it became the seat of the Achaemenid
satrapy. |
Because
of its natural harbours the ancient Greek colony of Sinope, modern
Sinop, was the most important port on the southern shore of the Black
Sea. http://www.museum.upenn.edu/Sinop/SinopHist.htm |
|
The kings
of Cilicia were called Syennensis, a term that seems to have come
to denote the office rather than being a personal name. The same thing
happened, for instance, to both Midas and Caesar. |
|
The term
Herodotus uses for what we might best call Anatolians, i.e. the native
peoples of the Plateau. |
|
Thales
lived in the first half of the sixth century in the East Greek city
of Miletus. Thinker, scientist and politician, he was the founder
of rational philosophy. Thales was the only pre-Socratic (before Socrates)
philosopher to be counted as one of the Seven Sages. Aristotle thought
he was the father of astronomy. None of his works, if indeed he ever
wrote any, have survived. |
|
Republic
since 29 October 1923, 780,580 square km, population c. 63,000,000.
For more facts, check out CIA World
Factbook. |
|
The
Neo-Assyrian term for the lands of Mount Ararat, a lofty volcanic
mountain in the high massif of Eastern Turkey. From the 9th century
B.C. Hurrian tribes came together to form a kingdom which flourished
in this region. By the late 7th century Urartu had become the extensive
Empire that today we call Urartu. The capital city was Tushpa on the
shores of Lake Van. At its height Urartu was able to threaten even
mighty Assyria, using the advantage of the natural strength provided
by its mountain fastness. Urartu fell, with every fortress apparently
destroyed by violent attack and fire, in the mid 7th century B.C.
It is not known who the attackers were, but they could well have included,
or even been led by, the Medes. |
|
|
Zipallanda. |
A city of the Hittite Empire
period that was an important cultic centre. It is mentioned in texts,
written in cuneiform script on clay tablets that were discovered at
Hattusha, which refer to religious festivals. The city is associated
with a sacred mountain that was called Mount Daha. It is thought that
Zippalanda is to be identified with the site at Kushakli (Yozgat),
a few kilometers north of Kerkenes, and that Kerkenes itself was Mount
Daha. |
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