Anatolia

Pontic Greek (Pontic: Ρωμαίικα, romanized: Rhomaiika, Greek: Ποντιακά, romanized: Pontiaka; Turkish: Rumca or Romeika), also referred to as Pontic, is a variety of Modern Greek indigenous to the Pontus region on the southern shores of the Black Sea, northeastern Anatolia, and the Eastern Turkish and Caucasus region. An endangered Greek language variety, Pontic Greek is spoken by about 778,000 people worldwide, who are known as Pontic or Pontian Greeks.

Like nearly all of Greek varieties spoken today, the linguistic lineage of Pontic Greek stems from the Hellenistic Koine, itself based on Attic–Ionic Greek, which later developed into the Byzantine Greek of the Middle Ages. Following its geographic isolation from the rest of the Greek–speaking world, Pontic continued to develop separately along with other Anatolian Greek dialects, like Cappadocian, from the 11th century onwards. As a result, Pontic Greek is not completely mutually intelligible with the standard Demotic Greek spoken in mainland Greece today. Pontic also contains influences from Russian, Turkish, Kartvelian (namely Laz and Georgian) and Armenian.

Hittite (Hittite cuneiform: 𒌷𒉌𒅆𒇷, romanized: nešili, lit. 'in the language of Neša', or nešumnili lit. 'in the language of the people of Neša'), also known as Nesite (Nešite/Neshite, Nessite), is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken by the Hittites, a people of Bronze Age Anatolia who created an empire centered on Hattusa, as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia. The language, now long extinct, is attested in cuneiform, in records dating from the 17th (Anitta text) to the 13th centuries BC, with isolated Hittite loanwords and numerous personal names appearing in an Old Assyrian context from as early as the 20th century BC, making it the earliest attested use of the Indo-European languages.

By the Late Bronze Age, Hittite had started losing ground to its close relative Luwian. It appears that Luwian was the most widely spoken language in the Hittite capital of Hattusa during the 13th century BC. After the collapse of the Hittite New Kingdom during the more general Late Bronze Age collapse, Luwian emerged in the early Iron Age as the main language of the so-called Syro-Hittite states, in southwestern Anatolia and northern Syria.

The Armenian highlands (Armenian: Հայկական լեռնաշխարհ, romanized: Haykakan leṙnašxarh; also known as the Eastern Anatolian highlands, Armenian upland, Armenian plateau, or Armenian tableland) comprise the most central and the highest of the three plateaus that together form the northern sector of West Asia. Clockwise starting from the west, the Armenian highlands are bounded by the Anatolian plateau, the Caucasus, the Kura-Aras lowlands, the Iranian Plateau, and Mesopotamia. The highlands are divided into western and eastern regions, defined by the Ararat Valley where Mount Ararat is located. Since the turn of the 20th century, Western Armenia has been relabeled as "Eastern Anatolia" by Ottoman and Turkish authorities. Eastern Armenia is part of Lesser Caucasus, which was historically known by some as the Anti-Caucasus, meaning "opposite of the Caucasus".

During the Iron Age, the region was known by variations of the name Ararat (Urartu, Uruatri, Urashtu). Later, the Highlands were known as Armenia Major, a central region to the history of Armenians, and one of the four geopolitical regions associated with Armenians, the other three being Armenia Minor, Sophene, and Commagene. The highlands are primarily defined by the geographical dispersal of its native inhabitants, the Armenians. Prior to the appearance of nominally Armenian people in historical records, historians have hypothesized that the region must have been home to various ethnic groups who became homogenous when the Armenian language came to prominence. The population of the Armenian highlands has had a high level of regional genetic continuity for over 6,000 years. Recent studies indicate that the Armenian people descend from the indigenous people of the Armenian highlands and form a distinct genetic isolate in the region. The region was also inhabited during Antiquity by minorities such as Assyrians, Georgians, Greeks, Jews, and Iranians. During the Middle Ages, Arabs and particularly Turkmens and Kurds settled in large numbers in the Armenian highlands.

Erzurum (Armenian: Կարին, romanized: Karin; Kurdish: Erzîrom) is a city in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the largest city and capital of Erzurum Province and is 1,900 meters (6,233 feet) above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 367,250 in 2010. It is the site of ancient Theodosiopolis.

The city uses the double-headed eagle as its coat-of-arms, a motif that has been a common symbol throughout Anatolia since the Bronze Age.

Trabzon Province (Turkish: Trabzon ili) is a province and metropolitan municipality of Turkey on the Black Sea coast. Its area is 4,628 km, and its population is 818,023 (2022). Located in a strategically important region, Trabzon is one of the oldest trade port cities in Anatolia. Neighbouring provinces are Giresun to the west, Gümüşhane to the southwest, Bayburt to the southeast and Rize to the east. Aziz Yıldırım was appointed Governor of the province in August 2023. The capital of the province is Trabzon.

The Roman–Seleucid war (192–188 BC), also called the Aetolian war, Antiochene war, Syrian war, and Syrian-Aetolian war was a military conflict between two coalitions, one led by the Roman Republic and the other led by the Seleucid king Antiochus III. The fighting took place in modern-day southern mainland Greece, the Aegean Sea, and Asia Minor.

The war was the consequence of a "cold war" between both powers, which had started in 196 BC. In this period, the Romans and the Seleucids attempted to settle spheres of influence by forging alliances with the small Greek city-states. Also important were the Romans and Seleucids' irreconcilable visions for the Aegean: the Romans saw Greece as their sphere of influence and Asia Minor as a buffer area while the Seleucids saw Asia Minor as a core part of their empire with Greece as the buffer zone.

The prehistory of Mesopotamia is the period between the Paleolithic and the emergence of writing in the area of the Fertile Crescent around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, as well as surrounding areas such as the Zagros foothills, southeastern Anatolia, and northwestern Syria.

In general, Paleolithic Mesopotamia is poorly documented, with the situation worsening in southern Mesopotamia for periods prior to the 4th millennium BC. Geological conditions meant that most of the remains were buried under a thick layer of alluvium or submerged beneath the waters of the Persian Gulf. The Middle Paleolithic witnessed the emergence of a population of hunter-gatherers who lived in the caves of the Zagros and, seasonally, in numerous open-air sites. They were producers of a lithic industry of the Mousterian type, and their funerary remains, found in the cave of Shanidar, indicate the existence of solidarity and the practice of healing between the members of a group. During the Upper Paleolithic, the Zagros was probably occupied by modern man. The Shanidar cave contains only tools made of bone or antler, typical of a local Aurignacian called "Baradostian" by specialists.

The Crusader states, or Outremer, were four Catholic polities established in the Levant region and southeastern Anatolia from 1098 to 1291. Following the principles of feudalism, the foundation for these polities was laid by the First Crusade, which was proclaimed by the Latin Church in 1095 in order to reclaim the Holy Land after it was lost to the 7th-century Muslim conquest. From north to south, they were: the County of Edessa (1098–1150), the Principality of Antioch (1098–1268), the County of Tripoli (1102–1289), and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1291).

The three northern states covered an area in what is now southeastern Turkey, northwestern Syria, and northern Lebanon; the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the southernmost and most prominent state, covered an area in what is now Israel, Palestine, southern Lebanon, and western Jordan. The description "Crusader states" can be misleading, as from 1130 onwards, very few people among the Franks were Crusaders. Medieval and modern writers use the term "Outremer" as a synonym, derived from the French word for overseas.

The Achaemenid Empire (/əˈkiːmənɪd/ ə-KEE-mə-nid; Old Persian: 𐎧𐏁𐏂, Xšāça, lit. 'The Empire' or 'The Kingdom') was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. At peak, its territorial extent was roughly 5.5 million square kilometres (2.1 million square miles), making it the largest empire of its time. Based in the Iranian plateau, it stretched from the Balkans and Egypt in the west to the Indus Valley in the east, including Anatolia, Cyprus, Mesopotamia, the Levant, parts of Eastern Arabia, and large parts of Central Asia.

By the 7th century BC, the region of Persis, located in the southwestern part of the Iranian plateau, had been settled by Persians. From Persis, Cyrus rose and defeated Media, Lydia, and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, thus marking the establishment of a new imperial polity in the ancient Near East. While its conquests were largely successful in most regions, the Achaemenid Empire's attempts to expand into Greece proved extremely difficult over the course of decades of wars and multiple kings, ultimately resulting in its defeat in the Greek mainland.

The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids (/ˈsɛldʒʊk/ SEL-juuk; Turkish: Selçuklular, Persian: سلجوقیان Saljuqian,) alternatively spelled as Saljuqids or Seljuk Turks, was an Oghuz Turkic, Sunni Muslim dynasty that culturally became Persianate and contributed to Turco-Persian culture.

The founder of the Seljuk dynasty, Seljuk Beg, was a descendant of a royal Khazar chief Tuqaq who served as advisor to the King of the Khazars, in West Asia and Central Asia. The Seljuks established the Seljuk Empire (1037–1194), the Sultanate of Kermân (1041–1186) and the Sultanate of Rum (1074–1308), which stretched from Iran to Anatolia and were the prime targets of the First Crusade.