Historical Timeline of Turkey up to the Ottomans

A few of you asked about the Ottoman Empire and its role in Turkish history and culture. But to understand Turkey a little better, I think one should understand the previous cultures that swept through here as well.

One important thing to note about Turkey is that it's surrounded by water, and that Istanbul (previously Constantinople) is located right at the entrance of the Bosphorus Strait, a strip of water that leads into the Black Sea, accessing more of Europe and Asia. All these potential sea ports made Turkey a really desirable place to settle. There's way too much history to cover here, so I'm going to give you a brief overview of the different cultures and kingdoms that inhabited Turkey up until the Ottoman Empire. We're going to skip all the prehistoric periods (from 500,000 B.C. to 2000 B.C.) and start with what's considered the historic period, starting in 2000 B.C.

Remember that the term Anatolia refers to the peninsula part of Turkey that is on the Asian side.

• 2000 B.C. to 700 B.C. The Hittites: The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who migrated from the Black Sea region. Their civilation rivaled the Egyptians and Babylonians. Here's a map of the Hittite Kingdom at its height, around the 1300 B.C. The name Hittites comes from the King James version of the Bible. Their religion was polytheistic, and in the Hebrew Bible, they are generally seen as descendants of the Biblican figure Canaan, a people that lived alongside the Israelites. The Hittite kingdom eventually fell to the Assyrians, the nearby kingdom in green.
• 860 to 334 B.C. Various Kingdoms: With the fall of the Hittites, a variety of other cultures had a brief dance in various regions in Turkey. The Urartian Kingdom from 860-580 B.C., the Phrygian Kingdom from 750-600 B.C., the Lydians from 680 to 546 B.C., and the Persians, from 546 to 334 B.C.
• 323 to 30 B.C. The Hellenistic Period: Alongside the Phrygian, Lydian and Persian kingdoms (which flourished mostly in central Anatolia) appeared the Greeks, who lived on the coasts of Anatolia, after escaping Dorian rule in the Dark Ages of the Aegean. At first, the Greeks cohabited relatively peacefully with the Lydians, and trade between the two cultures generated a renaissance for both groups. The Greeks first welcomed the Persians when they toppled Lydian rule. But when the Persians began imposing unpopular tyrants on Greek city-states, the Greeks rebelled, calling on their Greek kinsman for aid. In 334 B.C., a famous war occurred (documented by Herodotus, one of the earliest recorded historians). Alexander the Great defeated the Persians fighting under Xerxes the Great and liberated all the city-states, turning Turkey into part of a vast Greek empire for several hundred years.
• 30 B.C. to 395 A.D. The Roman Period, and 395 C.E. to 1453 C.E. The Byzantine Period: The Byzantine Empire is a modern term traditionally used to describe the Greek speaking Roman empire during the Middle Ages, with its capitol in Constantinople, today's Istanbul, and a major trade route passing through the region. Apparently there's no real consensus about its start date, but one of the main differences is that it was a Christian empire which had broken its previous ties with its pagan Roman past. You can see a map of the Byzantine/Roman Empire below, which is not based on a specific time frame, but will give you an idea of its vastness, as well as its influence of much of modern day Europe and North Africa.

• 1071-1300 C.E. The Selçuk Period: Though their reign only lasted a few hundred years in Turkey, the Selçuks played a very important cultural role in Turkish history. The Selçuks were a Turk-Persian tribe of recent Islamic conversion, that eventually set up an empire that stretched from Anatolia through Persia (Iran) and was the target of the first crusade. The Selçuks had their origins in Turkic tribes from Central Asia, which had migrated to the Anatolian region. Once they settled in Persia, the Selçuks adopted Persian culture and language and made great contributions to Persian art, literature, culture, and language. If you're familiar with the poet Rumi, he lived during this period (around 1200 A.D.) and this period gave birth to Sufism and the Whirling Dervish order. Selçuks are also regarded as the cultural ancestors of present-day Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan. Though they existed alongside the Byzantines for over two hundred years, their borders were continually frought with the constant tension that eventually led to the weakening and fall of the Byzantine Empire. As the Byzantine Empire began to wane, its weakness was just enough to leave the highly coveted and protected city of Constantinople vulnerable to the right invader...and this takes us right up to the beginning of the Ottoman Empire, and our next post.