Explore Ancient Anatolia

The Trojan War is one of history's most famous conflicts, a ten-year-long war waged over the beautiful Helen. For more than two thousand years this story has been a source of artistic inspiration. But is it true? In The Trojan War historian and classicist Barry Strauss explores the myth and the reality behind the war, from Homer's accounts in The Iliad and The Odyssey to Heinrich Schliemann's discovery of ancient Troy in the late nineteenth century to more recent excavations that have yielded intriguing clues to the story behind the fabled city.

The Anatolian is a fictional novel of ancient times in the Middle East, and tells the story of a young Hittite prince, Muwatallis, who is robbed of his birthright and flees ...

Luvian is the language of Anatolian hieroglyphic inscriptions and a close relative of Hittite. This book explores the Luvian ethnic history through sociolinguistic methods, with an emphasis on the interpretation of contacts between Luvian and its linguistic neighbors, such as Hittite, Hurrian, and Greek. It is concluded that Luvian was originally spoken in the central part of Anatolia. Subsequent Luvian migrations were connected with the expansion of the Hittite state, where Hittite was the socially dominant language, but the Luvian speakers were more numerous. The unstable balance between the Hittite and the Luvian speakers continued to shift in favor of the second group, to the point that the Hittite elites were fully bilingual in Luvian...

Book review: This is the first comprehensive study of the history of Asia Minor in antiquity to be written for nearly fifty years and the first attempt to treat Anatolian history as a whole over the millennium from the time of Alexander the Great to the peak of the Byzantine Empire.

Photo: Hittite god-king Ura-Tarhunzas, (Talmi-Teshub) statue in limestone, from Aslantepe Malatya (Lions’ Hill), eighth century BC, in the museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, Turkey.

Horse chariot and Phrygian warrior on a Phrygian tile from palace of Midas at Gordium Museum, Ankara. The chariot is the earliest and simplest type of horse carriage, used in both peace and war as the chief vehicle of many ancient peoples. Ox carts, proto-chariots, were built in Mesopotamia as early as 3000 BC. The original horse chariot was a fast, light, open, two- or four-wheeled conveyance drawn by two or more horses hitched side by side. The car was little else than a floor with a waist-high semicircular guard in front. The chariot, driven by a charioteer, was used for ancient warfare during the Bronze and Iron Ages, armor being provided by shields. The vehicle continued to be used for travel, processions and in games and races after it had been superseded for military purposes. Militarily, the chariot became obsolete as horse breeding efforts produced an animal that was large enough to ride into battle, or, for that matter, to mount a soldier with heavy weapons and armor.

Book review: 1907. Ramsay, the first Professor of Classical Archaeology at Oxford University, pioneered the study of antiquity in what is today known as western Turkey. He went on to devote the latter part of his life to applying what he had learned to the study of the New Testament. He is also acknowledged as the outstanding authority on the life of Paul. This volume is divided into the following parts Paulinism in the Greco-Roman World; Tarsus; Antioch; Iconium; Derbe; Lystra; and St. Paul in the Roman World. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.