Anatolia

The Ottoman Empire, also known as the Turkish Empire, controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th century to the early 20th century. It also controlled parts of southeastern Central Europe between the early 16th and early 18th centuries.

The empire emerged from a beylik, or principality, founded in northwestern Anatolia in c. 1299 by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. His successors conquered much of Anatolia and had expanded into the Balkans by the mid-14th century, transforming their petty kingdom into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans under Mehmed II brought to and end the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Controlling a large part of the Mediterranean Basin, and with its capital at Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire was at the centre of interactions between the Middle East and Europe for six centuries. The empire ruled over a vast population and granted varying levels of autonomy to its many confessional communities, or millets, to manage their own affairs per Islamic law. The Ottoman Empire became a global power in the 16th century during the reign of Selim I and Suleiman the Magnificent.

Gallic groups, originating from the various La Tène chiefdoms, began a southeastern movement into the Balkans from the 4th century BC. Although Gallic settlements were concentrated in the western half of the Carpathian basin, there were notable incursions and settlements within the Balkans.

From their new bases in northern Illyria and Pannonia, the Gallic invasions climaxed in the early 3rd century BC, with the invasion of Greece. The 279 BC invasion of Greece proper was preceded by a series of other military campaigns waged in the southern Balkans and against the Kingdom of Macedonia, favoured by the state of confusion ensuing from the disputed succession after Alexander the Great's death. A part of the invading Celts crossed over to Anatolia and eventually settled in the area that came to be named after them, Galatia.

The Thracians (/ˈθreɪʃənz/; Ancient Greek: Θρᾷκες, romanized: Thrāikes; Latin: Thrācēs) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe in ancient history. Thracians resided mainly in Southeast Europe in modern-day Bulgaria, Romania, North Macedonia, northern Greece and European Turkey, but also in north-western Anatolia (Asia Minor) in Turkey.

The exact origin of the Thracians is uncertain, but it is believed that Thracians like other Indo-European speaking groups in Europe descended from a mixture of Proto-Indo-Europeans and Early European Farmers.

Early European Farmers (EEF) were a group of the Anatolian Neolithic Farmers (ANF) who brought agriculture to Europe and Northwest Africa. The Anatolian Neolithic Farmers were an ancestral component, first identified in farmers from Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor) in the Neolithic, and outside of Europe and Northwest Africa. Although the spread of agriculture from the Middle East to Europe has long been recognised through archaeology, until recently it was unknown how this happened, because of lack of human ancient DNA from pre-Neolithic times. Recent (2025) studies have shown that the spread of Neolithic cultures from Anatolia to West Eurasia was a complex phenomenon involving distinct mechanisms, from pure cultural adoption to admixture between migrating farmers and local forages, to rapid migration. Cultural similarities were not caused by large-scale mobility.

The earliest farmers in Anatolia derived most (80–90%) of their ancestry from the region's local hunter-gatherers, with minor Levantine and Caucasus-related ancestry. The Early European Farmers moved into Europe from Anatolia through Southeast Europe from around 7,000 BC, gradually spread north and westwards, and reached Northwest Africa via the Iberian Peninsula. Genetic studies have confirmed that the later Farmers of Europe generally have also a minor contribution from Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHGs), with significant regional variation. European farmer and hunter-gatherer populations coexisted and traded in some locales, although evidence suggests that the relationship was not always peaceful. Over the course of the next 4,000 years or so, Europe was transformed into agricultural communities, with WHGs being effectively replaced across Europe. During the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Age, people who had Western Steppe Herder (WSH) ancestry moved into Europe and mingled with the EEF population; these WSH, originating from the Yamnaya culture of the Pontic steppe of Eastern Europe, probably spoke Indo-European languages. EEF ancestry is common in modern European and Northwest African populations, with EEF ancestry highest in Southern Europeans, mostly Sardinians and Basque people.

Persian literature comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources have been within Greater Iran including present-day Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Kurdistan Region, the Caucasus, and Turkey, regions of Central Asia (such as Tajikistan), South Asia and the Balkans where the Persian language has historically been either the native or official language.

For example, Rumi, one of the best-loved Persian poets, born in Balkh (in modern-day Afghanistan) or Wakhsh (in modern-day Tajikistan), wrote in Persian and lived in Konya (in modern-day Turkey), at that time the capital of the Seljuks in Anatolia. The Ghaznavids conquered large territories in Central and South Asia and adopted Persian as their court language. There is thus Persian literature from Iran, Mesopotamia, Azerbaijan, the wider Caucasus, Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Tajikistan and other parts of Central Asia, as well as the Balkans. Not all Persian literature is written in Persian, as some consider works written by ethnic Persians or Iranians in other languages, such as Greek and Arabic, to be included.

The Dying Gaul, also called The Dying Galatian (Italian: Galata Morente) or The Dying Gladiator, is an ancient Roman marble semi-recumbent statue now in the Capitoline Museums in Rome. It is a copy of a now lost Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic period (323–31 BC) thought to have been made in bronze. The original may have been commissioned at some time between 230 and 220 BC by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Galatians, the Celtic or Gaulish people of parts of Anatolia. The original sculptor is believed to have been Epigonus, a court sculptor of the Attalid dynasty of Pergamon.

Until the 20th century, the marble statue was usually known as The Dying Gladiator, on the assumption that it depicted a wounded gladiator in a Roman amphitheatre. However, in the mid-19th century it was re-identified as a Gaul or Galatian and the present name "Dying Gaul" gradually achieved popular acceptance. The identification as a "barbarian" was evidenced for the figure's neck torc, thick hair and moustache, weapons and shield carved on the floor, and a type of Gallic horn, a carnyx, between his legs.

The Gauls (Latin: Galli; Ancient Greek: Γαλάται, Galátai) were a group of Celtic peoples of mainland Europe in the Iron Age and the Roman period (roughly 5th century BC to 5th century AD). Their homeland was known as Gaul (Gallia). They spoke Gaulish, a continental Celtic language.

The Gauls emerged around the 5th century BC as bearers of La Tène culture north and west of the Alps. By the 4th century BC, they were spread over much of what is now France, Belgium, Switzerland, Southern Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic, by virtue of controlling the trade routes along the river systems of the Rhône, Seine, Rhine, and Danube. They reached the peak of their power in the 3rd century BC. During the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, the Gauls expanded into Northern Italy (Cisalpine Gaul), leading to the Roman–Gallic wars, and into the Balkans, leading to war with the Greeks. These latter Gauls eventually settled in Anatolia (contemporary Turkey), becoming known as Galatians.

The Galatians (Ancient Greek: Γαλάται, romanized: Galátai; Latin: Galatae, Galati, Gallograeci; Greek: Γαλάτες, romanized: Galátes, lit. 'Gauls') were a Celtic people dwelling in Galatia, a region of central Anatolia in modern-day Turkey surrounding Ankara during the Hellenistic period. They spoke the Galatian language, which was closely related to Gaulish, a contemporary Celtic language spoken in Gaul.

The Galatians were descended from Celts who had invaded Greece in the 3rd century BC. The original settlers of Galatia came through Thrace under the leadership of Leogarios and Leonnorios c. 278 BC. They consisted mainly of three Gaulish tribes, the Tectosages, the Trocmii, and the Tolistobogii, but there were also other minor tribes. In 25 BC, Galatia became a province of the Roman Empire, with Ankara (Ancyra) as its capital.

La Tène is a protohistoric archaeological site on the northern shore of Lake Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Dating to the second part of the European Iron Age it is the type site of the La Tène culture, which dates to about 450 BCE to the 1st century BCE and extends from Ireland to Anatolia and from Portugal to Czechia. La Tène is listed as a property of national significance.

Byzantine Anatolia refers to the peninsula of Anatolia (located in present-day Turkey) during the rule of the Byzantine Empire. Anatolia was of vital importance to the empire following the Muslim invasion of Syria and Egypt during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in the years 634–645 AD. Over the next two hundred and fifty years, the region suffered constant raids by Arab Muslim forces raiding mainly from the cities of Antioch, Tarsus, and Aleppo near the Anatolian borders. However, the Byzantine Empire maintained control over the Anatolian peninsula until the High Middle Ages (years 1080s), when imperial authority in the area began to collapse.

The Byzantine Empire re-established control over parts of Anatolia during the First Crusade, and following the sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade, Anatolia became the heartland of the successor states of the Empire of Nicaea and Empire of Trebizond. Following the retaking of Constantinople in 1261, the region gradually passed out of Byzantine control and into the hands of the Ottoman Turks as the empire gradually crumbled. The last Byzantine fortress of Philadelphia fell in 1399, and the last Byzantine presence in the area at Trapezus ended in 1461 with the fall of Trebizond.