Our map shows data compiled from ancient sources regarding the ethnic and linguistic structure of Anatolia around the year 0. The main sources are Strabo of Amasya's Geography, completed around 17 AD, and Pliny the Elder's encyclopedic work Naturalis historia, written around 70 AD. In addition, the language distribution of historical place names in the Nişanyan Yer Adları (Nişanyan Place Names) has been taken into account. Useful sources for the eastern provinces, however, only become abundant towards the end of the 4th century AD.
1. In my opinion, the most striking graphic element of the map is the distribution of Greek cities.
The Greeks did not multiply in Anatolia through mass migration and reproduction. They spread by establishing cities, a completely new form of social organization. A city (polis) implies certain institutions (temple, theater, gymnasion, assembly), a common system of belief (Greek mythology), and a common written language (Greek). The city's population was probably overwhelmingly native. However, the common language is Greek, and the common religion is the Olympian religion. ALL cities are Greek cities. A non-Greek city is, I believe, an unheard-of concept until the mid-3rd century.
The first Greek cities worthy of the title "city" were on the Ionian coast in the 6th century BC. From the 4th century BC onwards, they spread to the coasts and penetrate inland from the Aegean valleys. From 66 BC onwards, cities built according to the Greek model, such as Nicopolis and Pompeiopolis, appear in the interior of Anatolia with the military power of the Romans. Those settled here are partly Roman soldiers and partly the local servant class. However, these cities are Greek in terms of language, religion, culture, and belonging.
During the imperial era, urban culture will spread throughout the country (with the help of tax breaks), and the language of the cities (Greek) and the new religious synthesis (Christianity) will become standard throughout Anatolia by the 4th century.
2. The Thracians possessed established kingdoms in Southern Bulgaria and Thrace, dating back to the second millennium BC. We know about 20-25 words, about 60 place names, and a few personal names from their language. It is an Indo-European language. The degree of its relationship to the Anatolian languages is unknown.
We know that there were Thracian settlements in Bithynia (Kocaeli peninsula, Yalova, etc.).
The place names Byzantion, Silivri, Çorlu, and Vize are Thracian.
3. Homer recounts that the people on the Anatolian side of Çanakkale descended from an ancestor named Dardanos. The Dardan- element appears as a place and personal name throughout the Balkan geography. Dardania means belonging to the Illyrian-origin people of today's Kosovo.
Around the year 0, the native people of Çanakkale (Anatolian side) and Balıkesir are called Mysians. They are probably the same tribe or its continuation.
4. Bithynia possessed a powerful kingdom until 74 BC. The royal dynasty is of local (Bithynian) origin, but from the 3rd century BC onwards, they bear Greek or Persian names.
Perhaps all of the districts of Bursa, Bilecik, and Sakarya could have been shown as Bithynian on the map.
5. The Mygdons, who gave their name to the Mudanya district, came from the sea, clashed with the Bithynians, and settled on the coast. The name is probably the Macedonian equivalent.
6. The Mariandyni were natives of Karadeniz Ereğlisi. Their borders are specified as the Sakarya in the west and the Filyos River in the east. Some time before the Christian era, they were defeated by the Paphlagonians and merged with them.
7. The area between the Bartın River and the Kızılırmak was the country of Paphlagonia. The Paphlagonians are probably the continuation of the Kaşka people mentioned in the 2nd millennium BC. They had a language belonging to a separate branch from Hittite in the Indo-European group.
8. 9. 10. 12. 13. The Lydians, Carians, Lycians, Pisidians, and Lycaonians probably possessed different Anatolian languages that were a continuation of the old Luwian language. The Lydians' homeland is Salihli, the Carians' is between Söke and Bodrum and the southern shore of the Büyük Menderes, the Lycians' is the Teke Peninsula between Dalaman and Adrasan, the Pisidians' is the Lakes region, and the Lycaonians' is the Konya Plain.
11. 14. Strabo reports that four places around Kibyra in Burdur Gölhisar spoke Lycian and Greek, but had their own separate language. The Solymi, who resided in the city of Telmessos like an eagle's nest to the west of Antalya, were a wild tribe that spread fear to all the peoples around them. We have no information about their language.
15. It is recorded that the people of Pamphylia consisted of very diverse tribes. The name of the country means "all tribes". Pan means "all", phylê means "tribe".
16. The Isaurians, who lived in the Ermenek-Hadim region, maintained a strong ethnic identity and probably a separate language until as late as the end of the 5th century. In 476, a local potentate named Tarasi, son of Kodissa, became the Eastern Roman emperor through a military coup.
17. On the small map, we see the distribution of ancient place names in Old Anatolian languages (i.e., languages related to Hittite and Luwian). We can assume that the native people in this area spoke various Anatolian languages. However, our knowledge about the year 0 is insufficient.
18. The Phrygians, probably coming from the Balkans at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, settled in the Inner Aegean region after spreading terror throughout Anatolia. They formed a dominant class over the native Anatolian-speaking people. Almost all of the ancient place names in the region are in Anatolian languages.
The Moskhi/Muşki tribe, whose names were heard in Kayseri, Elazığ and Palu, the Muş Plain, and even Artvin and Göle in the 8th century BC, was also most likely a branch of the Phrygians.
19. The Galatians are Western or Central European Celts. In 278 BC, after burning and looting the Balkans in a large group, they crossed over to Anatolia. They established three tribal kingdoms in Pessinus (Eskişehir Ballıhisar), Ankyra (Ankara), and Tavion (Yozgat Büyüknefes). They preserved their language until the 4th century AD. Most of the place names, including Ankyra, are not Galatian, but in old Anatolian languages.
20. The people of the Cilicia region, stretching from Alanya to Ceyhan, are probably not a single tribe. The place names show a different structure from the Anatolian Languages. Some of them bear Semitic language (Phoenician? Aramaic?) characteristics. It appears that there is also an archaic Hellenic (Danao) element from the Bronze Age in the region.
21. The Cappadocians, forming two separate groups centered in Kayseri and Samsun, are enigmatic. In the 8th century BC, the Cimmerians, an Iranian tribe, settled between Kayseri and Gürün-Darende or established dominance in that region. (Armenian historians call Cappadocia "Cimmerian Country" – Kamirk.) In contrast, the city of Mazaka/Majak (Kayseri) was founded by the Muşkis. (According to ancient Armenian historians, the Muşkis are Armenians or subjects of the Armenian king.)
In the 4th-3rd centuries BC, Persian or Median culture seems to have dominated the kingdom of Cappadocia. The rulers bear Iranian names.
And yet, according to Strabo and his contemporaries, the people of Cappadocia and Pontos (Amasya-Samsun) are "White Syrians" (Leukosyrioi). Countless academic articles have been written about what this means.
There are no place names belonging to Anatolian Languages in this region, or only one or two.
22. The Mardaites, living in Maraş and the Amanos Mountains to the south, are mentioned at the earliest after the Islamic conquest. However, the name Ceracime (Curcumlu) given to this people by the Arabs must be an archaic name. We have no information about their origins and languages. The name Mardait brings the Medes to mind. A part of this people, who remained Christian during the Umayyad era, would be exiled to Lebanon and Yemen, another part to Antalya, the 12 Islands, the south of the Peloponnese, and the vicinity of Preveze.
23. The people referred to in ancient sources as Gordy, Kordy, or Kyrdoi are very clearly localized to the north and east of Mount Kürd (Mount Cudi). These are today's Şırnak center and neighboring districts. Cezire (Cizre) is not included. Hakkari is uncertain. It is not known who the "cave dwellers" residing in the Norduz country between Hakkari and Van-Gürpınar are.
24. The Medes (Medoi, Mardoi), who possessed a large country in Western Iran and briefly ruled the world at the beginning of the 7th century BC, probably spoke the same language as the Kurds or a language similar to it. However, they are shown as a separate tribe from the Gordy/Kordy in all (Greek, Roman, Armenian, Syriac) ancient sources. There are dynasties of Median origin (or claiming descent from Median rulers) who are dominant in the Armenian country and in the west as far as Kayseri. However, we have no data that the Median language and culture continued to live in this area. It appears that they adopted the Armenian language and political culture in many instances.
When the Urartu kingdom was destroyed in the 6th century BC, it is recounted that the Armenian king appointed the Median king's brother or relative, and on this occasion, the Medes were settled in the Ağbak (Başkale) and Gürpınar-Edremit valley. However, by the 4th century AD, the rulers of this region clearly belonged to the Armenian language and political culture.
The Georgian chronicle records that in the age of legends, the Georgian king built the Ardahan fortress and settled "Medes with devilish tongues" in the region.
25. There is no doubt that Armenian was the common and dominant language in the country that the Romans called Armenia Major. Almost all of the old place names in the region we have indicated with 25 are Armenian. The legends of the local bey dynasties have been recorded extensively after the 4th century.
26. The Sivas and Şebinkarahisar region, which the Romans called Armenia Minor, came under the rule of the Pontus kings first, and then the Romans in the 1st century BC, and as far as can be understood, it was more or less Hellenized. This region does not play a role in ancient Armenian history. No activity of the Armenian church established in the 4th century has been recorded in this region (before the era of Turkish conquests).
27. Herodotus and other Ancient Greek historians record that a tribe called Saspeires lived in İspir. The name is structurally in Georgian or a similar language. However, this region was conquered by the Armenians at an uncertain date before or after Christ. All of the old place names that have survived to the present day are Armenian.
28. 29. Ancient Armenian historians state that there were tribes in Pasinler (Paseank, 28) and Kars (29) who were not originally Armenian but had more or less adopted the Armenian language and culture. According to the same historians, the people of Kars are from the peoples of the northern Caucasus. They may be of Caucasian, Iranian, or Turkic origin.
30. 31. Kings who bore Persian names, declared affiliation to the Median or Persian dynasty, but had close kinship and cultural relations with the Armenian kings, reigned in Sophene (Çemişgezek, Pertek; later Elazığ, Ergani, and Eğil) and Kommagene (Adıyaman). We have no information about the composition of the population. The Romans always characterize Sophene as Armenia. This term is not used for Kommagene. Looking at subsequent developments, it can be assumed that the population of Kommagene was predominantly Aramaic/Syriac, and that the southern provinces that Sophene later acquired were at least partially Aramaic/Syriac.
32. Our knowledge of the areas we have shown in pale brown is very limited. These places are shown among the properties of the Armenian kings, but there is almost no information about people, events, and settlements.
34. The southeastern provinces belong to the Aramaic/Assyrian culture, which is the dominant culture of the ancient Middle East. The Silvan-Batman-Sason-Bitlis region is a principality or kingdom that was sometimes subject to the Armenian kings but prided itself on being of the lineage of the Assyrian kings. The kingdom of Osroene in Urfa, which lasted until the 3rd century AD, is the homeland of the Aramaic written language called 'Syriac'. However, the Roman Pliny the Elder defines the Urfa region to the left of the Euphrates as "Arabia" in the 1st century.
33. Nomadic tribes bearing the name "Arab" are recorded in and around Harran starting from before the Christian era. However, there is no consensus in the academic literature about what the Arab mentioned here means. According to some views, the name Arab is given to Aramaic-speaking nomadic tribes or rebellious tribes that are not subject to settled political structures.
35. It is said that the native people who formed a settled culture in Şemdinli and Hakkari central district are Assyrians speaking another Aramaic dialect. It is impossible to find reliable information about the detailed history of the region, let alone before Christ, until the 19th century.
36. The provinces of Artvin and Ardahan are subject to the kingdom of Iberia, which later took the name "Georgian". Place and personal names are mentioned in the compilation of archaic texts called the Georgian Chronicle.
37.-42. Greek and Roman historians mention the tribes called Taokhi in the Yusufeli district, Kolkhi on the Atina-Hopa-Batum coast, Mossynoeki (“tree dwellers”) or Heptakometes (“seven villagers”) in the Hemşin and Of mountains, Khalybes or Khaldi in Gümüşhane and Torul, Makrones around Trabzon and Maçka, and Tibareni in Ordu and Giresun. Based on the tribal and place names, it can be thought that these had Kartvelian languages like Georgian (or were named by Kartvelian speakers, or attributed Kartvelian names to themselves).