Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
CENTRAL AND EASTERN ANATOLIA LATE IRON AGE: Post-Urartu, Median and Achaemenid Empires, Prof. Dr. Aynur Özfırat,Prof. Dr. Şevket Dönmez,Prof. Dr. Mehmet Işıklı,Öğr. Gör. Mona Saba, Editör, Ege Yayınları, İstanbul, ss.121-157, 2019
The 6th Century BC is an important turning point, not only for Central Anatolia but
all of Near East as well. Persians united under the leadership of Cyrus II (Cyrus the
Great) ended the Median rule in the Iranian plateau and established one of the mightiest
empires of Antiquity. In a period, in which the historical ideas and personalities that
both the Eastern and Western civilizations take as role models become more visible,
Central Anatolia became a stage of ongoing and intensifying conflict between these two
civilizations.
To be able to control an entire trade network consisting both land and sea trade routes in
the Near East is a political and military objective that must be fulfilled by any rising power.
The allied forces of the Babylonians and the Medes defeated the Assyrians at the end of
the 7th Century BC and Neo-Assyrian Empire ceased to exist following that defeat. This
historical event, which created a power vacuum in the region, brought three contestants
for the control of the trade network to prominence: The Medes, who wanted to extend
their influence in northwestern Iran to west via Eastern Anatolia; the Babylonians,
who took the former Assyrian centers in Southeastern Anatolia, and the Sardeis-based
Lydians, who controled the Ancient Greek city states on the coasts of Western Anatolia.
According to Ancient Greek oral tradition, the rival Eastern and Western civilizations
came face to face via their representatives i.e. the Medes and the Lydians at the beginning
of the 6th Century BC in Central Anatolia; the conflict was inconclusive. Search for a
diplomatic solution afterwards was fruitful; marriages arranged between the parties
acted as insurance for the treaty made. The treaty was short lived, however; and the final
solution to the crisis was postponed to a later date. Other notable information relayed
by the Ancient Greek oral tradition are: The Lydian-Median border was drawn by the
Kızılırmak River and the alleged existence of a Median Empire east of the river; which
was sometimes directly mentioned, while others only hinted.
Following Sancisi-Weerdenburg’s famous article, the term “Median Empire” became
a subject of debate. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, who investigated the problem from an
archaeological point of view, points out that there are no signs proving the existence of a
Median ideology and a Median tax collecting system. When the excavations undertaken
both in Northwest Iran and Central Anatolia in the last thirty years are taken into account,
we don’t see any archaeological data that would change the aforementioned fundamental
approach regarding the problem. It’s highly probable that the Median politico-cultural
union was destroyed by the Persians before it could reach to imperial level.
The changes to pottery tradition that began at the end of the Middle Iron Age created
at least three cultural region in the Kızılırmak Bend at the beginning of the Late Iron
Age. While the group that could be said to be the successor to Alişar IV type pottery
was prevalent throughout the Kızılırmak Bend, its range shrank considerably during the
Late Iron Age and it lost its dominant position. There are mixed pottery groups where
Alişar IV and Ancient Greek ceramics are seen together without a clear distinction in
the Mountainous Black Sea belt that forms the northern section of the Bend. It seems
Alişar IV type pottery was replaced in the south and southwest of Delice River with
pottery groups produced with the firing technique known from west of Kızılırmak. These
changes, especially those in the south of the Bend, should be direct evidences of Kingdom
of Lydia’s attempts of expansion into Central Anatolia, mentioned in the Ancient Greek
oral tradition. When these archaeological data is considered, the last stage of the sequence
of political and military events that said to brought Croesus and Cyrus the Great face
to face, Croesus’ traversing the river and pillaging Pteria, land of Leucosyrians, it seems
to took place north of Delice River, a tributary of Kızılırmak River. Regions south and
southwest of Delice River must have come under the control of the Kingdom of Lydia
right before or the first years of the reign of Croesus. The pillaging is evidence of why the
local people supported Persians in the Lydian-Persian conflict; the strong Achaemenid
Persian culture tradition dating to the 5th-4th Centuries BC in Oluz Höyük located north of
Delice River is another evidence for the necessity that the region known as Pteria should
be search in Northern-Central Anatolia.
The Achaemenid Persian Empire whose dominance expanded with the Battles of Pteria
and Thymbra must have started to apply new cultural and administrative practices in
Anatolia in mid-6th Century BC. From the Central Anatolian point of view, archaeological
data do not confirm disputed historical records, which means that the Satrapy of
Cappadocia was institutionalized at the end of the 6th Century BC. Architectural remains
and findings representing local beliefs discovered in settlements in the Kızılırmak Bend
continue without interruption until the end of the 6th Century BC.