12,000 years in seven chapters
Who built what, and when, from the first stone circles to the Ottoman palaces. Each chapter lists the places where you can still walk through it.
First villages
Hunter-gatherers raised the stone circles of Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe before anyone farmed. Villages of mud-brick followed, at Aşıklı Höyük and Çatalhöyük, and by the fourth millennium BC Arslantepe ran its stores from a palace. Troy’s first city was founded around 3000 BC.
Where to see itHittites
Before the Hittites, Assyrian merchants traded tin and cloth at Kanesh and kept their letters on clay. The Hittite kings ruled from Hattusa, carved their gods into the rock at Yazılıkaya, fought Egypt at Kadesh and then signed a peace treaty with it. The empire fell apart around 1180 BC.
Where to see itPhrygia, Lydia, Urartu
Three kingdoms followed. Phrygia ruled the centre from Gordion, the city of Midas. Lydia ruled the west from Sardis and struck the first coins. Urartu held the eastern highlands around Lake Van. Persia took Lydia in 547 BC.
Where to see itGreeks and Persians
Greek cities grew along the Aegean coast, and in Ionia the first philosophers asked what the world was made of. Lycians and Carians built their own tombs and temples further south. From the 540s BC all of them answered to the Persian king, until Alexander crossed into Asia in 334 BC.
Where to see itHellenistic and Roman
Alexander’s successors and then Rome filled Anatolia with theatres, libraries, baths and colonnaded streets. Pergamon gave its name to parchment, a king of Commagene put his statue among the gods on Nemrut, Ephesus became the first city of Roman Asia, and inland Kibyra led a league of four cities with its own army.
Where to see itByzantine and Armenian
Constantine made Byzantium his capital, Constantinople, and Justinian built Hagia Sophia there. In Cappadocia monks painted churches inside the rock and villages dug down into underground cities. In the east, Armenian kings built the church on Akdamar island and the city of Ani.
Where to see itSeljuk and Ottoman
After the battle of Manzikert in 1071 the Seljuks settled Anatolia and made Konya their capital, with caravanserais along the trade roads. The Ottomans took Constantinople in 1453 and ruled from it until the empire ended after the First World War.
Where to see it