History of Antalya
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Antalya (from Greek "Αττάλεια" -
Attaleia) is a city on the Mediterranean coast of southwestern
Turkey, and the capital city of Antalya Province. Situated on
coastal cliffs, Antalya is surrounded by mountains. Development
and investment, begun in the 1970s, have transformed the city
into an international resort.
According to tradition, in the 2nd
century BC, the Pergamum king Attalos II ordered his men to find
"heaven on earth". After an extensive search, they discovered
the region of Antalya. King Attalos rebuilt the city, giving it
the name "Attaleia" (Greek: Αττάλεια) which later mutated in
Turkish as Adalia and then Antalya.
It is uncertain when the site of
the current city was first inhabited. Attalos II, king of
Pergamon, was believed to have founded the city around 150 BC,
naming it Attalia and selecting it as a naval base for his
powerful fleet. |
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However, excavations in 2008 in
the Doğu Garajı district of Antalya have uncovered remains
dating to the 3rd century BC, suggesting that the city was
founded earlier than previously supposed. Antalya became part of
the Roman Republic in 133 BC when King Attalos III of Pergamum
willed his kingdom to Rome at his death. The city grew and
prospered during the Ancient Roman period.
Christianity started to spread in the region after 2nd century.
Antalya was visited by Paul of Tarsus, as recorded in the Acts
of the Apostles: "From Perga, Paul and Barnabas went down to
Attalia and sailed from there to Antioch after preaching in
Pisidia and Pamphylia" (Acts 14:25-26)
Antalya was a major city in the
Byzantine Empire. It was the capital of the Byzantine Theme of
Carabisiani (Θέμα Kαραβησιάνων, Thema Karavēsianōn), which
occupied the southern coasts of Asia Minor and the Aegean
Islands. |
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At the time of the accession of
John II Comnenus (1118) it was an isolated outpost against the
Turks, accessible only by sea.[2] The following year, with the
aid of his commander-in-chief John Axuch, John II drove the
Turks from the land routes to Antalya and reconnected the city
with the rest of the empire.
The city, along with the
surrounding region, was conquered by the Seljuk Turks in the
early 13th century. Antalya was the capital of the Turkish
beylik of Teke (1321–1423) until its conquest by the Ottomans.
The Arabic traveler Ibn Battuta who came to the city in between
1335-1340 noted:
From Alanya I went to Antaliya [Adalia], a most beautiful city.
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It covers
an immense area, and though of vast bulk is one of the most
attractive towns to be seen anywhere, besides being exceedingly
populous and well laid out. Each section of the inhabitants
lives in a separate quarter. The Christian merchants live in a
quarter of the town known as the Mina [the Port], and are
surrounded by a wall, the gates of which are shut upon them from
without at night and during the Friday service.
The Greeks, who were its former
inhabitants, live by themselves in another quarter, the Jews in
another, and the king and his court and Mamluks in another, each
of these quarters being walled off likewise. The rest of the
Muslims live in the main city. Round the whole town and all the
quarters mentioned there is another great wall. The town
contains orchards and produces fine fruits, including an
admirable kind of apricot, called by them Qamar ad-Din, which
has a sweet almond in its kernel. This fruit is dried and
exported to Egypt, where it is regarded as a great luxury. |
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Hadrian's Gate
In the second half of the 17th century Evliya Çelebi wrote of a
city of narrow streets containing 3,000 houses in twenty Turkish
and four Greek neighborhoods. The town had grown beyond the city
walls and the port was reported to hold up to 200 boats.
In the 19th century, in common with most of Anatolia, its
sovereign was a "dere bey" (land lord or landowner). The family
of Tekke Oglu, domiciled near Perge, though reduced to
submission in 1812 by Mahmud II, continued to be a rival power
to the Ottoman governor until within the present generation,
surviving by many years the fall of the other great beys of
Anatolia. The records of the Levant (Turkey) Company, which
maintained an agency in Antalya until 1825, documented the local
dere beys.
In the 20th century the population of Antalya increased as Turks
from the Caucasus and the Balkans moved into Anatolia. By 1911
it was a city of about 25,000 people, including many Christians
and Jews, still living in separate quarters around the walled
mina or port. The port was served by coast steamers of local
companies. Antalya (then Adalia) was picturesque, but ill-built
and backward. The chief attraction for visitors was the city
wall, and outside a promenade -a portion of which survives to
the present. The government offices and the houses of the higher
classes were all outside of the walls.
The city was briefly occupied by
the Italians from the end of the First World War until the
founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923. |
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