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According to the old legends, Ephesus was founded by the female warriors known as the
Amazons. The name of the city is thought to have been derived from
"APASAS", the name of a city in the "KINGDOM OF ARZAWA" meaning the "city of the Mother
Goddess". Ephesus was inhabited from the end of the Bronze Age onwards, but changed
its location several times in the course of its long history in accordance
with habits and requirements. Carians and Lelegians are to be have been among the city's first inhabitants. Ionian
migrations are said to have begun in around 1200 B.C. According to legend,
the city was founded for the second time by Androclus, the son of Codrus,
king of Athens, on the shore at the point where the CAYSTER
(Kucuk Menderes) empties into the sea, a location to which they had been
guided by a fish and a wild boar on the advice of the soothsayers. The
Ionian cities that grew up in the wake of the Ionian migrations joined in a
confederacy under the leadership of Ephesus. The region was devastated during the Cimmerian
invasion at the beginning of the 7th century B.C. Under the rule of the
Lydian kings, Ephesus became one of the wealthiest cities in the
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Mediterranean world. The defeat of the
Lydian King Croesus by Cyrus, the King of Persia, prepared the way for the extension
of Persian hegemony over the whole of the Aegean coastal region. At the
beginning of the 5th century, when the Ionian cities rebelled against Persia, Ephesus quickly dissociated itself from the others, thus escaping
destruction.
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According to the old legends, Ephesus was founded by the female warriors known as the Amazons. The name of
the city is thought to have been derived from "APASAS", the name of
a city in the "KINGDOM OF ARZAWA" meaning the "city of the Mother Goddess". Ephesus was inhabited from the end of the Bronze Age onwards, but changed its
location several times in the course of its long history in accordance with
habits and requirements. Carians and Lelegians are to be have
been among the city's first inhabitants. Ionian migrations are said to have
begun in around 1200 B.C. According to legend, the city was founded for the
second time by Androclus, the son of Codrus, king of Athens, on the shore at the point where the CAYSTER (Kucuk Menderes) empties
into the sea, a location to which they had been guided by a fish and a wild
boar on the advice of the soothsayers. The Ionian cities that grew up in the
wake of the Ionian migrations joined in a confederacy under the leadership of
Ephesus. The region was devastated during the Cimmerian invasion at the
beginning of the 7th century B.C. Under the rule of the Lydian kings, Ephesus became one of the wealthiest cities in the Mediterranean world.
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The defeat of the Lydian King Croesus by
Cyrus, the King of Persia, prepared the way for the extension of Persian
hegemony over the whole of the Aegean coastal region. At the beginning of the
5th century, when the Ionian cities rebelled against Persia, Ephesus quickly dissociated itself from the others, thus escaping
destruction.
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According to the old legends, Ephesus was founded by the female warriors known as the Amazons. The name of
the city is thought to have been derived from "APASAS", the name of
a city in the "KINGDOM OF ARZAWA" meaning the "city of the Mother Goddess". Ephesus was inhabited from the end of the Bronze Age onwards, but changed its
location several times in the course of its long history in accordance with
habits and requirements. Carians and Lelegians are to be have
been among the city's first inhabitants. Ionian migrations are said to have
begun in around 1200 B.C. According to legend, the city was founded for the
second time by Androclus, the son of Codrus, king of Athens, on the shore at the point where the CAYSTER (Kucuk Menderes) empties
into the sea, a location to which they had been guided by a fish and a wild
boar on the advice of the soothsayers. The Ionian cities that grew up in the
wake of the Ionian migrations joined in a confederacy under the leadership of
Ephesus. The region was devastated during the Cimmerian invasion at the
beginning of the 7th century B.C.
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Under the rule of the Lydian kings, Ephesus became one of the wealthiest cities in the Mediterranean world. The
defeat of the Lydian King Croesus by Cyrus, the King of Persia, prepared the
way for the extension of Persian hegemony over the whole of the Aegean
coastal region. At the beginning of the 5th century, when the Ionian cities
rebelled against Persia, Ephesus quickly dissociated itself from the others, thus escaping
destruction.
Ephesus remained under Persian rule until the arrival of Alexander the Great
in 334 B.C., when it entered upon a fifty year period of peace and
tranquillity. Lysimachus, who had been one of the twelve generals of
Alexander the Great and became ruler of the region on Alexander's death,
decided to embark upon the development of the city, which he called Arsineia
after his wife Arsinoe. He constructed a new harbour and built defence walls
on the slopes of the Panayır and Bulbul Mts., moving the whole city 2.5 km to the south-west. Realising, however,
that the Ephesians were unwilling to leave their old city, he had the whole
sewage system blocked up during a great storm, making the houses
uninhabitable and forcing the inhabitants to move. In 281 B.C. the city was
re-founded under the old name of Ephesus and became one of the most important of the commercial ports in the Mediterranean
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In 129 B.C. the Romans took advantage of
the terms of the will left by Attalos, King of Pergamon, by which they were bequathed his kingdom, to incorporate the whole region
into the Roman Empire as the province of Asia. Ancient sources
show that at this time the city had a population of 200,000. In the 1st
century B.C. the heavy taxes imposed by the Roman government led the
population to embrace Mithridates as their savior and to support him in his
mutiny against Roman authority and in 88 B.C. a massacre was carried out of
all the Latin speaking inhabitants of the city, which was then stormed and
sacked by a Roman army under Sulla, It was from the reign of Augustus onwards
that the buildings we admire today were constructed. According to documentary
sources, the city suffered severe damage in an earthquake in 17 A.D. After
that, however, Ephesus became a very important centre of trade and commerce. The historian
Aristio describes Ephesus as being recognised by all the inhabitants of the region as the most
important trading centre in Asia. It was also the
leading political
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and intellectual centre, with the second school of philosophy in the Aegean. From the 1st century onwards, Ephesus was visited by Christian disciples attempting to spread the Christian
belief in a single God and thus forced to seek refuge from Roman persecution.
Besides enjoying a privileged position between East and West coupled with an
exceptionally fine climate, the city owed its importance to its being the
centre of the cult of Artemis.
For the Christians, the city, with its highly advanced way of life, its high
standard of living, the variety of its demographic composition and its firmly
rooted polytheistic culture, must have presented itself as an ideal pilot
region... From written sources we learn that St Paul remained in the city for three years from 65 to 68, and that it was
here that he preached his famous sermons calling upon the hearers to embrace
the faith in. one God. He taught that God had no need of a house made with
human hands and that he was present in all places at all times. This was all
greatly resented by the craftsmen who had amassed great wealth from their
production of statues of Artemis in gold, silver or other materials. A
silversmith by the name of Demetrius stirred up the people and led a crowd of
thousands of Ephesians to the theatre, where they booed and stoned Paul and
his two colleagues, chanting "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians! Great
is Artemis of the Ephesians!" So turbulent was the crowd that Paul and
his companions escaped only with great difficulty. From his Epistles to the
communities it would appear that Paul spent some time as a prisoner in Ephesus.
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Legend has it that St John the Evangelist came to Ephesus with the Virgin Mary in his care. Some also say that it was here that
he wrote his Gospel and was finally buried. In 269 Ephesus and the surrounding country was devastated by the Goths. At that time
there was still a temple in which the cult of Artemis was practised. In 381,
by order of the Emperor Theodosius, the temple was closed down, and in the
following centuries it lay completely abandoned, serving as a quarry for
building materials.
The situation of the city, which had given it its privileged geographical
position, was also the cause of its decline and fall. The prosperity of the
city had been based on its possession of a sheltered natural harbour, but by
the Roman period ships reached the harbour to the west of Mt Pion 1.5 km from
the Temple of Artemis through a very narrow and difficult channel. The cause of this was
the Meander (Cayster) River, which emptied into the Aegean a little to the west of the city of Ephesus, where it created a delta formed by the alluvium carried down by the
river over thousands of years. By the late Byzantine era the channel had been
so silted up as to be no longer usable. The sea gradually receded farther and
farther, while the marshy lands around the harbour gave rise to a number of
diseases, such as malaria. The new outlook that had arisen with the spread of
Christianity led to the gradual abandonment of all buildings bearing witness
to the existence of polytheistic cults and the construction in their place of
Christian churches. In the year 431 the third Ecumenical council took place
in Ephesus.
Emperor Theodosius convoked another council in Ephesus in 449, which came to be known as the "robber council".
From the 6th century onwards the Church of St John was an important place of pilgrimage, and Justinian took measures to
protect it by having.the whole hill on which it stood surrounded by defence
walls. Shortly afterwards, the Church of the Virgin and other places of
worship were destroyed and pillaged in Arab raids. In the 7th century the
city was transferred to the site now
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occupied by the town of Selcuk and during the Byzantine era Ephesus grew up around the summit of Mt Ayasulug. The city enjoyed its last
years of prosperity under the Selcuk Emirate of the Aydınogulları. During the
Middle Ages the city ceased to function as a port.
By the 20th century the silt carried down by the Meander had extended the
plain for a distance of 5 km.
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CELSIUS LIBRARY
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One of the finest structures in Ephesus, the Celsus Library has recently been restored. Raised on a high
plinth, the building is approached via a broad flight of steps.
It was built by the Consul Gaius Julius Aquila in 135 AD. as
a hero in honor of his father, Celsius Polemaeanus, the governor of Asia Minor. The facade is highly ornamented on two levels, and there are three
main portals. Over the portals were columns and statues arranged in niches.
These statues were female figures representing the virtues wisdom, fate and
intelligence. Niches on the interior of the building were designed to hold
books.
One of the finest structures in Ephesus, the Celsus Library has recently been restored. Raised on a high
plinth, the building is approached via a broad flight of steps.
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It was built by the Consul Gaius Julius
Aquila in 135 AD. as a heron in honour of his father,
Celsus Polemaeanus, the governor of Asia Minor. The facade is
highly ornamented on two levels, and there are three main portals. Over the
portals were columns and statues arranged in niches. These statues were
female figures representing the virtues wisdom, fate and intelligence. Niches
on the interior of the building were designed to hold books. The tomb of
Celsius was placed in a crypt below the central large niche.
According to the inscription on the architrave of the building, its patron,
C.Aquila, died before it was completed, and the construction was carried on
by his heirs. Aquila left 25 thousand dinar for the acquisition of books for the library.
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HIDRIAN GATE
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This is on the street of the Curettes,
and is one of the better preserved buildings at Ephesus. According to the inscription over the architrave it was constructed
by P.Quintilius between 118-138 A.D., and dedicated
to the emperor Hadrian. Corinthian columns on the facade support a triangular
arched frieze, highly decorative in character, which contains a relief of
Tyche, goddess of victory. A vaulted roof covers the colonnaded portico. Four
statue bases front the building. Demolished in the 4th century AD. during restoration, the two friezes flanking the portal
were brought from other buildings and mounted there. They represent scenes
from the foundation of Ephesus, and include figures of deities and Amazons, and the Amazons and
Dionysos in ceremonial procession. The fourth frieze portrays Athena, goddess
of the moon, two male figures, one of which is Apollo, a female figure,
Androkles, Herakles, the wife and son of Theodosius and the goddess Athena.
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THE THEATER
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The focal point of Ephesus is the great theater, the largest in Asia Minor, with a seating capacity of 24.000.It dates from the early
Hellenistic period, with extensive additions and reconstructions in the
imperial Roman era. The auditorium extends through an angle of 220 Degrees
and has a diameter of 154 meters, with a vertical rise of 38 meters from its
orchestra to the uppermost tier of seats, whose middle section is still
surmounted by an arcade. Two diazomata divide the auditorium into three section, the first of which have twelve radial stairways
and the third twenty four. The diameter of the orchestra, which is slightly
larger than a semicircle, is about 34 meters.
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The actors in ancient Greek drama
originally performed alongside the chorus in the orchestra
; l after in the Hellenistic period, they acted on a raised stage, the
proscenium, which was erected in front of the Skene, the stage building. The
core of the Hellenistic Skene in the Ephesus theater remains Within the monumental stage building erected in the
Imperial Roman era. This grandiose structure originally had three stories,
with colonnaded frontals alternating with statues and relief's set in niches ;in front of it was the broad stage, raised high
above the level of the orchestra on three rows of Doric columns, whose stumps
remain in place.
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At the lower end of the Embolus on its left side, just opposite the
gateway, are the remains of a building complex that contained the public
latrines. An inscription in the latrines indicates that the complex also
included a brothel, which comprised a reception hall, bedrooms, a dining
room, a bath and a pool. Several of the chambers still retain their original
mosaic decoration, though their frescoes have all but disappeared. The
phallic statue of Priapus, now in the museum in Selcuk, was found in a well within
the brothel The complex originally built in the late first century A.D. or
early in the following century. Around the year 400 the structure was
extensively renovated and converted into a large baths by a wealthy Christian
lady named Scholoastica, who presumably would have eliminated the brothel.
The Baths of Scholoastica included a large colonnaded hall used as a public
meeting place. Some of the columns in this hall were taken from the temple of Hestia Boulea; inscribed on them are lists of the Curettes who served in this
sanctuary. Near the entrance to the baths there is a headless statue,
believed to be a representation of the lady Scholoastica.
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THE MARBLE WAY
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One of the main streets of
ancient Ephesus-The Marble Way-begins below the theater perpendicular to the
Arcadiane, running southward from there into the the center of the city.
The street takes its name from the fact that it is paved in marble, which
was laid down in the fifth century A.D. at the expense of a wealth Ephesian
named Eutropius. The marble way was designed as a thoroughfare for wheeled
vehicles, whose tracks can still be seen in the pavement with pedestrians
using a raised walkway on the west side under a Doric portico. The relief
panels depicting gladiators that we see alone the walkway where brought
here from other places in Ephesus. Notice also crude carving on the pavement, showing a woman’s head,
a pubic triangle and foot , the latter indicating
the direction to a brothel at the southern and of the marble way.
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1.-North Harbour Gate; 2- Central Harbour Gate; 3. South Harbour Gate; 4- Harbour Magazine;
5- Arcadian Road; 6-Byzantine Wall; 7- Four Columns; 8- Harbour Baths; 9-
Harbour Gymnasium; 10- Harbour Gymnasium; 11- Byzantine Baths, Atrium; 12-
Columned Forecourt; 13- Church of the Consul; 14- Archdukes Palace; 15-
Olympieion; 16-Apollo Temple; 17-Lysimachos Wall; 18- Heroon; 19- Vedius
Gymnasium; 20- City Gates; 21- Stadium; 22-Byzantine Palace; 23-Stadium
Road; 24- Theatre Gymnasium; 25. Street portal; 26- Theatre; 27- Fountain;
28- Roman Governor's Palace; 29-Marble road; 30- Agora; 31 -West gate of
Agora; 32- Western Road; 33. Serapis Temple; 34- Mazaeus -Mithridates Gate;
35- Celsius Library; 36- Large Shrine; 37- Necropolis; 38- Portal; 39-
House; 40- Scholoastica Baths; 41 -Hadrian's Temple; 42- Road to Baths; 43-
Heroon; 44- Octagon; 45, 46- Insula houses on slope; 47-Road to insula; 48-
Curettes Street; 49- Trajan Fountain; 50- Rotunda; 51- Hercules Gate; 52-
Memmius Monument; 53- Domitian Temple; 54- Round Tomb; 55- Paul's Cave; 56-
State Agora; 57- Necropolis; 58-lsis Temple; 59- Fountain; 60- Water
Palace; 61- Prytanion; 62- Divus Julius Temple; 63- Bouleuterion; 64-
Basilica; 65- Vedius Baths; 66- Fountain; 67- Fountain; 68- Lucas tomb; 69-
East Gymnasium; 70- Magnesian Gymnasium.
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Bluffer's
Guide to the Anatolian Iron Age
By Roger Norman / Turkish
Daily News
This is the second
Bluffer's Guide, and takes over more or less where the first one ended, at the close
of the Anatolian Bronze Age and the time of the upheavals of the 13th and 12th
centuries B.C. caused by largescale migrations in the Aegean region. The end of
the 13th century saw the end of the Hittite Empire that had dominated Anatolian
history for 500 years.
When to date the end of the Iron Age is a matter of taste, since in some ways
it can be said to be still continuing. For the purposes of this guide, the end
of the 6th century B.C. has been somewhat arbitrarily taken as the terminal
date, on the grounds that the 5th century onwards can better be considered
under the heading of Anatolia in classical times. We are thus dealing
approximately with the period 1200 to 500 B.C. As in the Bronze Age, the center
of power in the region remains the Near East, first in the shape of the vast
Assyrian Empire of Sargon II, afterwards with the emergence of the Medes and
Persians. Phrygia, and then Lydia, were the dominant Anatolian powers, and
Greek cities were starting to appear on the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts,
and, later, on the Black Sea. Cyrus the Great died in 530 B.C. and Croesus of
Lydia around the same time.
ARMENIANS -- A tribe, possibly of PHRYGIAN origin, which gradually occupied the
region of URARTIA towards the end of the 7th century. The position of a kingdom
sandwiched between the MEDES, the ASSYRIANS and whoever was the dominant power
in Anatolia proper guaranteed a chequered career for the first Armenians, and
for most of their successors. Armenia was to be ruled successively by Medes, Persians,
Seleucids, Romans etc. etc.
ASSYRIANS -- After a period
of relative decline in the 12th and 11th centuries, the Assyrian Empire not
only recovered but expanded rapidly, especially during the reign of Sargon II
(722-706), so that by the end of the 8th century B.C., Assyria comprised the
whole of present day Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Palestine and extensive
territories in present day Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Assyrian kings even
ruled in Egypt for 20 years in the mid 7th century. The empire collapsed with
impressive speed, however, during the final decades of the 7th century,
defeated by a coalition of MEDES and Babylonians. The Assyrian capital Nineveh
fell in 612.
CIMMERIANS -- One of the
"destroyers" of historical record and, like others before and after
them, originating from somewhere in the broad steppes of southern Russia. Swept
into Anatolian history at the end of the 8th century, first harrying the
URARTIANS, then destroying the Phrygian capital GORDIUM in 695 and burning
Lydian SARDIS 50 years later. Always described as historians as advancing in
"hordes", technically an anachronism, since the word horde comes from
the Turkish <ITALIK ordu ITALIK> meaning army.
CROESUS -- Lydian king who
reigned c. 560 to 547 B.C. Like the Phrygian Midas, a byword for great wealth,
possibly because the LYDIANS were the first to mint coins. Croesus was the subject of the famous
dialogue with Solon related by Herodotus. In reply to Croesus' leading question
"Who is the most fortunate of men?", Solon irritatingly replied by
naming various unknown and defunct Greeks, making the point that no man could
be called happy until he was dead. It was also Croesus who was fooled by the ambiguous
reply of the Delphic oracle -- "If you attack, you will destroy a great
nation". It turned out to be his own, and Croesus became an (honored)
captive of the Persian king Cyrus. Croesus has come down to us as a very human
and rather sympathetic character, thanks largely to Herodotus. History proper
starts somewhere here, one might say.
CYBELE -- The chief
Phrygian divinity and their version of the Anatolian mother goddess. She was
suckled by wild creatures as an infant, ministered to as a deity by castrated
priests and her cult was apparently characterized by frenzied orgies. A symbol
of fertility, often depicted as pregnant, sometimes many-breasted. Atys was her
omprehensively defeated (although somewhat unfairly, some would say, because
Cyrus apparently used the smell of his pack camels to deter the Lydian cavalry)
in 547 B.C. Sardis was taken and Lydia became a Persian satrapy.
MEDES -- An Iranian tribe
who first appear as the Mada and start threatening the power of Assyria in the
7th century. Together with Babylonian forces they destroyed Nineveh in 612 and
soon afterwards took control of URARTIA. They were later defeated by the
Persian King Cyrus and were incorporated into the empire of the PERSIANS. The
Greeks tended to refer to the Persians as Medes and Cyrus as "the
Mede". In the later Persian Empire, the Medes were associated with the
Magi, a sacerdotal caste who followed the teachings of Zoroaster (Zarathustra).
MIDAS -- Known as Mita to
the Assyrians and Egyptians. Famous in legend for the "Midas touch"
which turned everything, even his food, to gold. Yet oddly there was no gold
found in the immense burial mound near GORDIUM that has come to be known as
Midas' tomb. There were however, a large number of wonderful bronze cauldrons
and other vessels which can now be seen in the Museum of Anatolian
Civilizations in Ankara. Actually, there is a second so-called Tomb of Midas,
an intriguing temple, possibly dedicated to CYBELE and to be found some 60
kilometers southeast of Eskisehir. It consists of a huge facade sculptured on
the living rock. Midas himself was probably the last of the independent
PHRYGIAN kings and is said to have committed suicide after the defeat by the
CIMMERIANS.
MOPSUS -- A Greek by the
name of Mopsus has the honor of being the very first figure of Greek legend to
be authenticated as a historical personality. (Remember that there is still no
<ITALIK proof ITALIK> that there were ever such people as Agamemnon or
Achilles.) Legend said that one Mopsus wandered the Anatolian peninsula after
the fall of Troy and ended up founding Greek colonies in Pamphylia and Cilicia
(on the Mediterranean coast). He appears in a Hittite document with the
unappealing name of Mukshush and also in an inscription at Karatepe in Cilicia.
He is said to have founded Aspendus, Phaselis and Mopsuestia.
NEO-HITTITES -- Remnants of
the Hittites, mixed with Hurrians, Hattians and others, who occupied a series
of city states in the northern regions of present day Syria and southern
Turkey. The art and architecture of the Neo-Hittite cities owe a good deal to
Hittite traditions. Carchemish and Zincirli, close to the present day
Turco-Syrian border are the best known of these.
PERSIANS -- An Iranian
people who probably arrived in the region of present day Iran during the 8th
century B.C., a little later than the MEDES, whom they later defeated and
assimilated. It was under Cyrus the Great that the Persians began to build the
great empire that was to be the dominant power of the Near East on and off for
nearly a millennium. The early period of Persian glory is usually referred to
by the name of its ruling dynasty, the Achaemenids, who were overthrown by
Alexander. (They were succeeded in turn by the Seleucids -- named after
Alexander's general Seleucus, the Parthians -- who fought the Romans over three
centuries, and the Sassanians -- who were finally defeated by the Arabs.) Cyrus
took Lydia and Babylonia; his son Cambyses occupied Egypt; and Darius I, who
became king in 486 B.C., was responsible for introducing a gold coinage,
building a huge network of roads -- including the Royal Road from SARDIS to
Susa and fostering commerce throughout the empire.
PHRYGIANS -- Federation of
tribes who moved into Anatolia from Eastern Europe during the last century of
the Bronze Age and who established a powerful kingdom centered on GORDIUM which
included Troy and Hierapolis. Replaced the Hittite Empire as the dominant force
in central Anatolia, building modest walled towns on the ruins of the old
Hittite cities -- at Bogazkoy, Alaca Hoyuk, Kultepe and elsewhere. Came up
against Sargon II of ASSYRIA in the 8th century and were wiped out by the
fierce CIMMERIANS at the beginning of the 7th century. Phrygian inscriptions
remain unintelligible and the reputation the Phrygian people have left behind
them makes strange reading. Stubborn, effeminate, servile and voluptuous
according to various Greek readers, they were famous as makers of grave and
solemn music and also for the wearing of a peculiar conical cap which was later
worn by freed Roman slaves and thus became a symbol of liberty to the French
revolutionaries of 1789. Phrygia was also known among Greeks as a land of
fabulous wealth (see MIDAS).Their Chief divinity was CYBELE.
SARDIS -- Lydian capital,
situated in the broad and fertile valley of the Gediz Cayi. There's not much
left now of the Lydian city, although American excavators claim to have found
the remains of the first ever mint (see CROESUS). Ten kilometers to the north
lies Bin Tepe, the Lydian necropolis, where there are scores of burial mounds
dating from the great age of the Lydian kingdom. The largest of these, the Tomb
of Alyattes (father of Croesus), took ten minutes to ride around according to
the nineteenth century traveller W.J. Hamilton.
URARTIANS
-- Possibly a Hurrian people, since their language is closely related. Settled
the area around Lake Van and established a kingdom that included Mt. Ararat and
the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates. First mentioned in ASSYRIAN texts
in the 13th century B.C., reached their zenith three or four centuries later
when they built a characteristic series of massive hill fortresses in the
region. Came into conflict with the Assyrian Empire in the 8th century B.C. and
disappeared from history somewhat mysteriously in the 6th century at which
period they were replaced by the ARMENIANS. Urartia is sometimes known as the
Kingdom of Van, or the Vannic kingdom.