Ancient Anatolia

Question: In the Byzantine Empire, what was the name for a military district formed in Anatolia to stop the advances of Arab armies?

Answer: The system of organizing territory into themes (Greek: themata) began in the 7th century CE under the emperor Heraclius.

Question: Which king is traditionally considered the founder of the Hittite Old Kingdom?

Answer: Labarnas I and his wife Tawannannas are known primarily from a 14th-century Hittite text called the Edict of Telipinus.

Question: In which battle was the Byzantine army decisively defeated by Seljuq Turks in 1071?

Answer: Seeking to counter Seljuq incursions into Byzantine territory, the emperor Romanus IV Diogenes led an army into Seljuq territory, but was defeated by the Seljuq sultan Alp-Arslan near the modern city of Malazgirt, Turkey.

Question: Which Anatolian kingdom was the lengendary King Midas said to have ruled?

Answer: Midas was also the name of several real-life Phrygian kings, with the last one ruling until about 700 BCE. The stories of Midas’s "golden touch" appeared in Greece several centuries later.

Question: The name of the district Galatia is derived from the Latin name for which ethnic group?

Answer: Three Celtic tribes migrated into Anatolia in 278 BCE. The were settled in a region of northern Phrygia that came to be known as Galatia.

Question: Which Anatolian language was written in both cuneiform and hieroglyphic scripts?

Answer: Heiroglyphic Luwian was written using a system of heiroglyphs that was unique to the Luwian language. Cuneiform was used for a wide variety of Anatolian and Middle Eastern languages.

Question: Who did the Hittites fight in the Battle of Kadesh?

Answer: In about 1300 BCE troops led by the Hittite king Muwattalis repelled an Egyptian army led by Ramses II, preventing it from capturing the Syrian city of Kadesh.

Question: What city was the site of the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the World?

Answer: The Temple of Artemis, famous for its size and the beauty of the artwork that adorned it, was built by the Lydian King Croesus in about 550 BCE.