Phrygians in the context of "Ankara Castle"

This is a list of peoples who inhabited Anatolia in antiquity. The essential purpose of the list is to identify prehistoric cultures in the region but many of the peoples continued to inhabit Anatolia into and through classical and late antiquity, so the actual scope of the list encompasses the history of Anatolia from prehistory to the Eastern Roman Empire (4th to 7th centuries AD), during which transition to the early medieval occurred.

Anatolia was inhabited by numerous peoples and its history is characterised by different waves of population movement. The earliest recorded inhabitants of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians, non-Indo-European peoples who lived in Anatolia as early as c. 2300 BC. Indo-European Hittites came to Anatolia and gradually absorbed the Hattians and Hurrians c. 2000 – c. 1700 BC. Besides Hittites, Anatolian peoples included Luwians, Palaic peoples and Lydians. They spoke Anatolian languages. Other incoming people include Armenians, Greeks, Phrygians and Thracians.

In classical antiquity, Phrygia (/ˈfrɪdʒiə/ FRIJ-ee-ə; Ancient Greek: Φρυγία, Phrygía) was a kingdom in the west-central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River.

Stories of the heroic age of Greek mythology tell of several legendary Phrygian kings:

*Dyḗus (lit. 'daylight'), also *Dyḗus ph₂tḗr (lit. 'father daylight'), is the reconstructed name of the daylight-sky god in Proto-Indo-European mythology. *Dyēus was conceived as a divine personification of the bright sky of the day and the seat of the gods, the *deywṓs. Associated with the vast diurnal sky and with the fertile rains, *Dyēus was often paired with *Dʰéǵʰōm, the Earth Mother, in a relationship of union and contrast.

While its existence is not directly attested by archaeological or written materials, *Dyēus is considered by scholars the most securely reconstructed deity of the Indo-European pantheon, as identical formulas referring to him can be found among the subsequent Indo-European languages and myths of the Vedic Indo-Aryans, Latins, Greeks, Phrygians, Messapians, Thracians, Illyrians, Albanians and Hittites.

In Greek and Roman mythology, Anchises (/ænˈkaɪsiːz/; Ancient Greek: Ἀγχίσης, romanized: Ankhísēs) was a member of the royal family of Troy. He was said to have been the son of King Capys of Dardania and Themiste, daughter of Ilus, who was son of Tros. He is most famous as the father of Aeneas and for his treatment in Virgil's Aeneid. Anchises' brother was Acoetes, father of the priest Laocoön.

He was a mortal lover of the goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman goddess Venus). Zeus made her fall in love with Anchises while he was herding sheep at the foot of Mount Ida. One version is that Aphrodite pretended to be a Phrygian princess and seduced him, only to later reveal herself and inform him that they would have a son named Aeneas; Aphrodite had warned Anchises that if he told anyone about her being the mother of his child, Zeus would strike him down with his thunderbolt. He did not heed her warning and was struck with a thunderbolt, which in different versions either blinds him or kills him. The principal early narrative of Aphrodite's seduction of Anchises and the birth of Aeneas is the Homeric Hymn (5) to Aphrodite. According to the Bibliotheca, Anchises and Aphrodite had another son, Lyrus, who died childless. He later had a mortal wife named Eriopis, according to the scholiasts, and he is credited with other children beside Aeneas and Lyrus. Homer, in the Iliad, mentions a daughter named Hippodamia, their eldest ("the darling of her father and mother"), who married her cousin Alcathous.

Gordion (Phrygian: 𐊩𐌏𐌛𐊅𐊄𐌌, romanised: Gordum; Ancient Greek: Γόρδιον, romanized: Górdion; Turkish: Gordion or Gordiyon; Latin: Gordium) was the capital city of ancient Phrygia. It was located at the site of modern Yassıhüyük, about 70–80 km (43–50 mi) southwest of Ankara (capital of Turkey), in the immediate vicinity of Polatlı district. Gordion's location at the confluence of the Sakarya and Porsuk rivers gave it a strategic location with control over fertile land. Gordion lies where the ancient road between Lydia and Assyria/Babylonia crossed the Sangarius river. Occupation at the site is attested from the Early Bronze Age (c. 2300 BCE) continuously until the 4th century CE and again in the 13th and 14th centuries CE. The Citadel Mound at Gordion is approximately 13.5 hectares in size, and at its height habitation extended beyond this in an area approximately 100 hectares in size. Gordion is the type site of Phrygian civilization, and its well-preserved destruction level of c. 800 BCE is a chronological linchpin in the region. The long tradition of tumuli at the site is an important record of elite monumentality and burial practice during the Iron Age.

In 2023, Gordion was listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Bryges or Briges (Greek: Βρύγοι or Βρίγες) is the historical name given to a people of the ancient Balkans. They are generally considered to have been related to the Phrygians, who during classical antiquity lived in western Anatolia. Both names, Bryges and Phryges, are assumed to be variants of the same root. Based on archaeological evidence, some scholars such as Nicholas Hammond and Eugene N. Borza argue that the Bryges/Phrygians were members of the Lusatian culture that migrated into the southern Balkans during the Late Bronze Age.

The Sargonid dynasty was the final ruling dynasty of Assyria, ruling as kings of Assyria during the Neo-Assyrian Empire for just over a century from the ascent of Sargon II in 722 BC to the fall of Assyria in 609 BC. Although Assyria would ultimately fall during their rule, the Sargonid dynasty ruled the country during the apex of its power and Sargon II's three immediate successors Sennacherib (r. 705–681 BC), Esarhaddon (r. 681–669 BC) and Ashurbanipal (r. 669–631 BC) are generally regarded as three of the greatest Assyrian monarchs. Though the dynasty encompasses seven Assyrian kings, two vassal kings in Babylonia and numerous princes and princesses, the term Sargonids is sometimes used solely for Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal.

Though the Sargonid dynasty only encompasses the reigns of a few kings, their rule saw the borders of the empire grow to encompass the entire Ancient Near East, the East Mediterranean, Asia Minor, the Caucasus and parts of the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa, and they witnessed the subjugation of rivals such as Babylonia, Elam, Persia, Urartu, Lydia, the Medes, Phrygians, Cimmerians, Israel, Judah, Phoenicia, Chaldea, Canaan, the Kushite Empire, the Arabs, and Egypt, as Assyria's rivals were either completely conquered or made vassals.

Mysia (UK /ˈmɪsiə/, US /ˈmɪʒə/ or /ˈmiːʒə/; Greek: Μυσία; Latin: Mysia; Turkish: Misya) was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor (Anatolia, Asian part of modern Turkey). It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west, and the Propontis on the north. In ancient times it was inhabited by the Mysians, Phrygians, Aeolian Greeks and other groups.