The Gulf of Alexandretta or İskenderun (Turkish: İskenderun Körfezi) is a gulf of the eastern Mediterranean or Levantine Sea. It lies beside the southern Turkish provinces of Adana and Hatay.
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👉 Gulf of İskenderun in the context of Amanus
The Nur Mountains (Turkish: Nur Dağları, "Mountains of Holy Light"), formerly known as Alma-Dağ, the ancient Mount Amanus (Ancient Greek: Ἄμᾱνος), medieval Black Mountain, or Jabal al-Lukkam in Arabic, is a mountain range in the Hatay Province of south-central Turkey. It begins south of the Taurus Mountains and the Ceyhan river, runs roughly parallel to the Gulf of İskenderun, and ends on the Mediterranean coast between the Gulf of İskenderun and the Orontes (Asi) river mouth.
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Gulf of İskenderun in the context of Kizzuwatna
Kizzuwatna (Hittite: 𒆳𒌷𒆠𒄑𒍪𒉿𒀜𒈾) was an ancient Anatolian kingdom, attested in written sources from the end of the 16th century BC onwards, but though its origins are still obscure, the Middle Bronze Age in Cilicia (ca. 2000–1550 BC) can be seen as its possible formative period. Kizzuwatna was situated mostly in the Cilician Plain of southeastern Anatolia, near the Gulf of İskenderun, in modern-day Turkey. The Central Taurus Mountains and the Amanus Mountains encircled it. The centre of the kingdom was the city of Kummanni, in the highlands.
Gulf of İskenderun in the context of Issus (town)
Issus (Latin; Phoenician: Sissu) or Issos (Ancient Greek: Ἰσσός, Issós, or Ἰσσοί, Issoí) was an ancient settlement on the strategic coastal plain straddling the small Pinarus river (a fast melt-water stream several metres wide) below the navigationally difficult inland mountains towering above to the east in the Turkish Province of Hatay, near the border with Syria. It can be identified with Kinet Höyük in the village of Yeşilköy near Dörtyol in Turkey's Hatay Province. Excavations on the mound occurred between 1992 and 2012 by Bilkent University. It is most notable for being the place of no fewer than three decisive ancient or medieval battles each called in their own era the Battle of Issus:
- The Battle of Issus (333 BC) or the First Battle of Issus, in which Alexander the Great of Macedonia defeated Darius III of Persia
- Battle of Issus (194) or the Second Battle of Issus, in which P. Cornelius Anullinus defeated Septimius Severus's rival Pescennius Niger
- Battle of Issus (622) or the Third Battle of Issus, in which the Byzantine emperor Heraclius defeated the Sassanid shah Shahrbaraz
Whether Issus is still present within a modern settlement is hotly debated among researchers. Regardless of which mountain brook was the locus of the battles, the old town was situated close to present-day İskenderun, Turkey, in the Gulf of İskenderun. Today, no town exists on both sides of the Pinarus river, which may or may not have been called Issus.