ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF TÜRKIYE
May 12, 2025•2,657 words
ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF TÜRKIYE
Where East Meets West and History Runs Deeper Than You Can Imagine
Which Forgotten Empire of Türkiye Created a Superpower That Rivaled Ancient Egypt and Babylon?
How did a civilization that once dominated Anatolia and challenged the greatest powers of the Bronze Age almost vanish from historical memory?
The Hittites emerged around 1650 BCE to create what historians now recognize as the first true Indo-European empire, yet until the late 19th century, they were merely shadowy figures mentioned in the Bible. Their rediscovery revealed an astonishing civilization that:
- Controlled most of Anatolia (modern Türkiye) and northern Syria
- Developed advanced iron-working technology before most contemporaries
- Created a sophisticated legal code with unusually progressive elements
- Maintained diplomatic and military parity with ancient Egypt
The Hittite capital of Hattusa (near modern Boğazkale) showcases their grandeur—massive stone walls with elaborate gateways, temples, royal residences, and an archive of thousands of clay tablets that finally allowed scholars to piece together their forgotten history.
Perhaps most fascinating is the Battle of Kadesh (1274 BCE), history's first well-documented military engagement, where Hittite forces under King Muwatalli II fought Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II to a standstill. The resulting treaty—the world's earliest known peace treaty—was so significant that a replica hangs in the United Nations headquarters.
"The Hittites represent one of history's most remarkable cases of civilizational amnesia. A superpower that once corresponded with Egyptian pharaohs as equals somehow slipped from historical consciousness until archaeologists literally stumbled upon their ruins."
Their eventual collapse around 1180 BCE during the mysterious Bronze Age collapse left Anatolia fragmented into smaller states—setting a pattern of rise, fall, and cultural reinvention that would characterize this crossroads region for millennia.
What Made Göbekli Tepe Rewrite Everything We Thought We Knew About Human Civilization?
How did a hill in southeastern Türkiye upend our understanding of when, why, and how humans first created monumental architecture?
Discovered in 1994, Göbekli Tepe has been archaeology's equivalent of finding a smartphone in a medieval grave. Dating to approximately 9500 BCE, it features:
- Massive T-shaped pillars weighing up to 16 tons
- Intricate carvings of animals including lions, bulls, and foxes
- Complex circular structures requiring sophisticated planning
- Construction before the development of pottery, metallurgy, writing, or even farming
The site predates Stonehenge by about 7,000 years and the Egyptian pyramids by 7,500 years. Let that sink in.
What makes Göbekli Tepe truly revolutionary is that it inverts our previous understanding of social development. Conventional wisdom held that humans needed agricultural surpluses before they could develop complex religion and monumental architecture. Göbekli Tepe suggests the opposite—that religious gatherings might have been the catalyst that brought hunter-gatherers together in large enough groups to eventually develop agriculture.
Even more puzzling, after being used for over 1,500 years, the site was deliberately buried under thousands of tons of debris. Was this ritual closure? An act of preservation? We may never know.
The site's discoverer, Klaus Schmidt, perhaps put it best: "First came the temple, then the city." This simple observation has forced a fundamental rethinking of how civilization itself began.
How Did Troy Become the Ancient World's Most Strategic Chokepoint for Trade?
What made a single city on Türkiye's western coast valuable enough to inspire history's most famous war?
Troy's location was a geopolitical lottery win that made it wealthy, powerful, and inevitably envied:
- Positioned at the entrance to the Dardanelles strait (ancient Hellespont)
- Controlled maritime traffic between the Aegean and Black Seas
- Connected trade routes between Europe and Asia
- Sat amid fertile agricultural land
Archaeological excavations have revealed at least 10 successive settlements at the site (Troy I-X), each rebuilding on top of previous ruins—a testament to the location's enduring value despite frequent destruction.
The city we associate with Homer's Iliad was likely Troy VI/VIIa, which flourished around 1700-1190 BCE, featuring impressive stone walls up to 5 meters thick and 8 meters tall. These weren't just defensive—they were statements of power and wealth derived from the city's ability to tax passing trade.
"Troy wasn't just a city; it was the ancient world's equivalent of the Suez Canal—a strategic chokepoint where wealth could be extracted from the flow of goods between worlds."
Troy's ultimate destruction (whether by Greeks, earthquakes, or other forces) didn't end its significance. The Romans later built Troy IX (Ilium) on the site, and Emperor Augustus traced his lineage to the Trojan hero Aeneas, making Troy a founding myth of the Roman Empire itself.
Even today, the Turkish government recognizes the site's importance—not just archaeologically but as a symbol of Türkiye's position as the bridge between continents and civilizations.
Which Anatolian Kingdom Was the First to Solve the Fundamental Problem of Money?
How did a civilization in western Türkiye revolutionize commerce by creating something we now take completely for granted?
The Lydian Kingdom, centered in western Anatolia around the 7th century BCE, transformed human economics by inventing something revolutionary: standardized coinage.
Before the Lydians, commercial exchange relied on:
- Barter (inefficient and limited)
- Weighed precious metals (requiring scales and trust)
- Commodity money like grain or cattle (perishable and non-standardized)
King Alyattes and his son Croesus introduced coins made of electrum (a natural gold-silver alloy) with standardized weights and official stamps guaranteeing their value. This innovation:
- Accelerated trade by removing the need to weigh metals for each transaction
- Created portable, durable wealth that could be easily stored
- Established government guarantee behind the currency
- Enabled more complex economic activity and wealth accumulation
The Lydian capital of Sardis became fabulously wealthy, giving rise to the expression "rich as Croesus." This wealth ultimately proved both blessing and curse—Persian king Cyrus conquered Lydia in 546 BCE, attracted by its legendary riches.
What's remarkable is how this Anatolian innovation spread rapidly across the Mediterranean world, with Greek city-states quickly adopting and adapting the concept. The foundations of modern monetary systems trace directly back to these small electrum lumps stamped with lions' heads in western Türkiye.
"By solving the trust problem inherent in commerce, Lydian coinage didn't just facilitate trade—it fundamentally altered what human societies could achieve and how they organized themselves around wealth."
How Did the Phrygians Create Türkiye's Most Disturbing Ancient Legend?
What made King Midas one of history's most misunderstood rulers, and why does his gruesome end continue to fascinate us?
The Phrygians, who dominated central Anatolia after the Hittite collapse (around 1200-700 BCE), created a distinctive civilization with a legendary king whose story has endured for millennia—but not as they would have told it.
The historical Midas (or Mita) was a powerful 8th-century BCE ruler who:
- Built an impressive capital at Gordion with massive fortifications
- Created distinctive art styles still visible in surviving artifacts
- Successfully resisted Assyrian expansion for decades
- Established diplomatic relations with Greek colonies
Yet we remember him primarily through Greek legend—as the foolish king whose wish for the "golden touch" nearly killed him.
Archaeological excavations at Gordion revealed something even more dramatic: the Midas Tumulus—a massive burial mound 53 meters high and 300 meters in diameter. Inside was a wood-lined burial chamber containing the remains of an elderly man (possibly Midas himself) surrounded by extraordinary bronze artifacts and the residue of a funeral feast that included a strange fermented beverage of wine, barley beer, and honey mead.
The most disturbing elements of the Midas legend emerged after his death. According to Greek sources, when nomadic Cimmerians invaded Phrygia around 700 BCE, Midas committed suicide by drinking bull's blood—a particularly horrific end as bull's blood was believed to coagulate rapidly in the stomach, causing an agonizing death.
This grim finale transformed Midas from historical ruler to cautionary tale—a warning about the dangers of unchecked desire that resonates far beyond ancient Anatolia.
Which Ancient Greek Cities in Türkiye Outsmarted, Outbuilt, and Outshone Athens Itself?
How did the western coast of Anatolia become home to Greek cities that rivaled and sometimes surpassed the achievements of mainland Greece?
The region Greeks called Ionia (western coastal Türkiye) wasn't just a collection of colonial outposts—it was the intellectual and artistic powerhouse of the ancient Greek world, producing:
- Herodotus, the "Father of History" from Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum)
- Thales, the first philosopher in Western tradition, from Miletus
- Hippodamus, who invented the grid-pattern city layout, from Miletus
- Heraclitus, philosopher of change ("No man steps in the same river twice"), from Ephesus
Ionian Greek cities pioneered ideas and innovations that mainland Greece later adopted. Ephesus grew into one of antiquity's largest cities, home to the magnificent Temple of Artemis—one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The archaeological site of Ephesus today reveals extraordinary urban sophistication:
- The Library of Celsus with its dramatic façade
- A theater seating 25,000 spectators
- Advanced water and sewage systems
- The first marble-paved street with nighttime illumination
Perhaps most impressive was Pergamon (modern Bergama), whose acropolis dramatically rises 335 meters above the surrounding plain. Its Library was second only to Alexandria's, containing 200,000 volumes until Mark Antony allegedly gave them to Cleopatra as a wedding gift. The city's physicians developed such advanced medical knowledge that the snake-entwined staff of Asclepius from Pergamon's healing center remains medicine's symbol today.
These achievements raise a provocative question: Was classical Greek civilization actually more Anatolian than European?
How Did Christianity Flourish in Türkiye Long Before It Took Root in Europe?
What made Anatolia the unexpected cradle for Christianity's transformation from persecuted sect to world religion?
Most people associate early Christianity with Rome or Jerusalem, but the heartland of the early church was actually Anatolia (modern Türkiye), where:
- Paul of Tarsus, Christianity's most influential early theologian, was born
- The earliest known Christian communities outside Jerusalem were established
- The term "Christian" was first used (in Antioch, then part of Anatolia)
- Christians first found protection from Roman persecution
The Seven Churches of Asia mentioned in the Book of Revelation were all located in western Türkiye, including Ephesus, Smyrna (modern İzmir), and Laodicea. These early communities laid the theological and organizational groundwork for Christianity's eventual spread.
When Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity with the Edict of Milan (313 CE), he soon established Constantinople (modern Istanbul) as his capital, effectively making Anatolia the center of Christian power and development.
The landscape itself became sanctified in Christian tradition. Mount Ararat, where Noah's Ark allegedly came to rest, stands in eastern Türkiye. Cappadocia's otherworldly rock formations provided refuge for early Christian communities who carved entire underground cities and hidden churches into the soft tufa stone—some preserving magnificent Byzantine frescoes that can still be seen today.
Most crucially, the Ecumenical Councils that defined core Christian doctrine—including the Council of Nicaea (325 CE), which produced the Nicene Creed still recited by Christians worldwide—took place on Anatolian soil, shaping the religion's future development in ways that continue to influence billions of believers.
What Made Constantinople (Istanbul) the Most Coveted City in the Medieval World?
How did a single city on the Bosphorus become so strategically vital that it survived as the capital of major empires for over 1,600 years?
Constantinople (founded 330 CE) wasn't just another imperial capital—it was the medieval world's ultimate prize, combining unmatched strategic advantages:
- Controls the Bosphorus strait connecting the Black Sea and Mediterranean
- Sits at the junction of Europe and Asia
- Features a natural harbor (the Golden Horn) protected from enemies and storms
- Benefited from nearly impregnable defensive walls and maritime access for resupply
Emperor Constantine designed his new capital to be a "New Rome," but it quickly surpassed the original. At its height in the 6th century under Justinian, Constantinople was the world's largest and most sophisticated city, with approximately 500,000 inhabitants when London was merely a small town of a few thousand.
The city's crowning achievement was Hagia Sophia—a cathedral so magnificent that when it was completed in 537 CE, Emperor Justinian reportedly exclaimed: "Solomon, I have surpassed thee!" Its massive dome, spanning 31 meters, remained an unsurpassed architectural achievement for nearly a millennium.
Constantinople's triple land walls represented medieval military engineering at its pinnacle—8 kilometers of successive fortifications that repelled attacker after attacker. The city withstood 23 sieges throughout its history as the Byzantine capital, falling only to:
- The Fourth Crusade in 1204 (fellow Christians who betrayed their allies)
- The Ottoman Turks under Mehmed II in 1453 (using massive cannons to breach the walls)
Even after conquest, the city retained its importance—becoming the Ottoman capital, then the focal point of the modern Turkish Republic's westernization under Atatürk, and now a global megacity straddling continents.
Which Underground Cities in Cappadocia Could House Thousands During Invasions?
How did the inhabitants of central Türkiye create massive subterranean complexes that remain engineering marvels even by modern standards?
Cappadocia's underground cities represent one of history's most remarkable adaptations to chronic insecurity. Carved into the region's soft volcanic tufa rock, these multi-level complexes could shelter entire communities during raids and invasions. The most impressive features include:
- Derinkuyu: An 18-level underground city that could house up to 20,000 people
- Kaymaklı: An 8-level complex with sophisticated ventilation shafts
- Massive stone doors: Circular stones weighing up to 500kg that could be rolled into place from the inside to seal tunnels
- Hidden water wells: Accessible only from inside to prevent poisoning by attackers
- Wineries, stables, churches, and storerooms: All the necessities for extended stays underground
These weren't primitive bunkers but sophisticated defensive systems designed for months-long occupation if necessary. Narrow passageways forced attackers to move single-file, making defense easier. Ventilation shafts—some extending 80 meters to the surface—provided fresh air while being too narrow for infiltration.
"Imagine an entire town disappearing beneath the earth within hours, leaving invaders to find nothing but abandoned surface dwellings. These cities weren't just refuge spaces—they were architectural manifestations of a population that had learned to become invisible when threatened."
Archaeological evidence suggests these complexes began during Hittite times (around 1600 BCE) but were significantly expanded during the Byzantine era when Christian populations faced periodic persecution and raids. Some remained in use until as recently as the early 20th century, with local residents using portions as cold storage or emergency shelters.
How Did the Lycians Create Türkiye's Most Hauntingly Beautiful Tombs?
What drove an ancient civilization to carve elaborate temple-tombs into sheer cliffs, and why were they so obsessed with the afterlife?
The Lycians, who flourished in southwestern Türkiye from the 15th-4th centuries BCE, created a distinctive civilization with a unique architectural legacy—most notably their extraordinary rock-cut tombs that still dot the Mediterranean coastline.
Three types of Lycian tombs showcase their funerary obsession:
- Pillar tombs: Tall monolithic columns topped with burial chambers
- House tombs: Rock-cut replicas of Lycian wooden houses with detailed architectural elements
- Temple tombs: Massive façades resembling Greek temples carved directly into cliff faces
The most spectacular examples can be found at Myra and Dalyan, where entire cliffs have been transformed into necropolises—veritable cities of the dead overlooking the land of the living. These weren't hidden graves but deliberate public monuments meant to be seen from afar.
What makes the Lycian attitude toward death particularly intriguing is their apparent belief that the dead required similar comforts to the living. Tomb inscriptions frequently contain specific curses against grave robbers, threatening divine retribution for disturbing the deceased.
The Lycians maintained fierce independence in life—holding off Persian domination longer than most neighbors and creating a democratic federation that later inspired the American founding fathers. Their tombs suggest they expected similar autonomy in death, creating afterlife dwellings that literally rose above the reach of the living.
"In Lycia, the boundaries between the world of the living and the realm of the dead were intentionally blurred. Tombs weren't hidden away but integrated into the landscape as eternal dwellings visible to all—as if the dead continued to participate in community life from their elevated perspective."