About Türkiye Tales

Türkiye Tales is for going to see Türkiye’s ancient places. Anatolia has been lived in for more than 12,000 years, and the remains of almost every chapter are still standing somewhere: temples older than farming, Hittite capitals, Greek and Roman cities, Byzantine churches and Seljuk caravanserais. Each place here has how long to allow, the town to stay in, the trip it is on and its tale.

Where the facts come from

• 2,706 ancient sites: the Pleiades (opens in a new tab) gazetteer of ancient places, plus 201 headline sites added and located by hand, with UNESCO status from the World Heritage Centre.
• 118 museums: the Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s museum pages. Not yet checked against an official list.
• 64 treasures and 43 pieces abroad or returned: museum pages and news reports, named on each row of the research files.
• 43 world firsts: each checked against the sources named in the research file and given a verdict.
• The tales of each place, the base towns, the trips and the seven history chapters are short summaries written for this site. Times to allow are our estimates. Tell us if one is wrong.
• Photos in the opening film: Wikimedia Commons, with the author and licence shown on each and a link to the file.

What is still missing

Photographs on the place pages (the drawings stand in for them), opening hours and ticket prices, and a Turkish version. Distances are straight lines between places, not road distances.