Explore Ancient Anatolia

Drawing ancient roman figures in Antalya Museum.

This work contains the first English translations of a collection of Hittite myths. The translations are based on the original tablets on which the myths were written, and take into account recent textual discoveries and published studies on the texts. Revised and augmented, this second edition includes additional introductions to each myth and a newly published Hurrian myth, "The Song of Release," dealing with legal and social institutions in ancient Babylonia and Israel. Accessible to nonspecialists, the translations also preserve column and line count for the convenience of scholars...

By the third century BC, at the height of their greatest expansion, the Celts had spread from their Rhineland home as far west as Ireland and east to Turkey s central plain, as far north as Belgium and south to Cadiz in Spain. They had crossed the Alps and defeated the armies of the Etruscan empire and had occupied Rome and invaded the Greek peninsula. Formidable warriors armed with iron weapons, they would find their way to Egypt and into Queen Cleopatra s elite bodyguard.

Photo: Hittite deity on ceramic tile at Ankara Archaeology Museum. Most of the narratives embodying Hittite mythology are lost, and the elements that would give a balanced view of Hittite religion are lacking among the tablets recovered at the Hittite capital Hattusa and other Hittite sites: "there are no canonical scriptures, no theological disquisitions or discourses, no aids to private devotion".

In The Archaeology of Lydia, From Gyges to Alexander, Christopher H. Roosevelt provides the first overview of the regional archaeology of Lydia in western Turkey, including much previously unpublished evidence and a fresh synthesis of the archaeology of Sardis, the ancient capital of the region. Combining data from regional surveys, stylistic analyses of artifacts in local museums, ancient texts, and environmental studies, he presents a new perspective on the archaeology of this area.

Though in contemporary discussions of ancient history they are often relegated to little more than a footnote, The Hittites once reigned as one of the most powerful tribes in the Middle East. By translating scripts and glyphs emblazoned on tablets several millennia ago, this program recounts the dramatic tale of the group and its legacy, thus transporting the audience some 3500 years back in time.

The 2400-year-old carved tomb found, decorated with reliefs of a bearded reclining man, probably belonged to Hecatomnus, ruler of Milas, the ancient Mylasa, founder of Hecatomnid dynasty, when Turkish Police raided a house used by people suspected of digging illegally for antiquities and discovered two tunnels leading to an underground tomb that housed an ancient marble sarcophagus and frescoes. Milas discovery is the first time in years that authorities have found what could be an important archaeological site while chasing looters.

Allianoi is in Pasha Ilicasi region, close to Bergama – Ivrindi Highway, Izmir, Turkey. In the 2nd century BC, orator and medicinal writer Aelius Aristides of Mysia wrote a book called Hieroi Logoi (Sacred Words) and mentioned that when he was traveling from Hadrianoterai to Bergama, he became ill and he went to Allianoi, drank its thermal spring water and got better. He said that he dreamed of God Asclepius and felt himself better with the inspirations of Asclepios. He said that the distance of this thermal spring water center to Bergama was 120 stadia (23-25 km). There is not any other important thermal water complex known between Bergama and Balıkesir. Although there is no epigraphic finding, relying on Aristeides work it is claimed that this place is Allianoi.

Color reconstruction work of detail on one of the long sides of the Alexander Sarcophagus at Istanbul Archaeology Museum. The carvings on this side of the piece depict Alexander fighting the Persians at the Battle of Issus. Volkmar von Graeve has compared the motif to the famous Alexander Mosaic at Naples, concluding that the iconography of both derives from a common original, a lost painting by Philoxenos of Eretria. Alexander is shown mounted, wearing a lionskin on his head, and preparing to throw a spear at the Persian cavalry.

Students of antiquity often see ancient Turkey as a bewildering array of cultural complexes. Ancient Turkey brings together in a coherent account the diverse and often fragmented evidence, both archaeological and textual, that forms the basis of our knowledge of the development of Anatolia from the earliest arrivals to the end of the Iron Age. Much new material has recently been excavated and