Anatolian peoples

Anatolians

The term "Anatolian" denotes any ethnic inhabitant of Anatolia descended from the inhabitants natve to the Anatolian Peninsula before the Turks arrived in the region.

The Anatolians are mainly divided into subgroups.

Anatolian Subgroups

Plateau Anatolians	North/Black Sea Anatolians	Cappadocians	Mediterranean Coastal Anatolians- "Sea People"	Caucasian Mountain Anatolians
Region	Region	Region	Region	Region
Anatolian Plateau, West	North Anatolia, southern Black Sea coast	Cappadocia, southeast Anatolia	Mediterranean Coast	Caucasus, Northeast

Cappadocians

The Cappadocian people were thousands of small villages, and each village was a clan. They made buildings out of clay from Cappadocia and structured them with rocks. This architectural design is unique to Cappadocians and resemble the natural rock formations only found in Cappadocia. The buildings, like all rocks and clay that happened to be pointed, form like the pointed rocks if they are pointed. Some Cappadocian clans formed multi-clan villages, which banded together as tribes, the most advanced of these formed into a confederation. This was called Armenia, in the center of Cappadocia. The surrounding part was inhabited by non-Armenian Cappadocians. This confused historians with the nation Armenia, east of Turkey.

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  Cappadocian Buildings

"Sea People"- Mediterranean Anatolians

The Sea People are often recorded in Hittite (see either below or link), Egyptian, and Greek history. They inhabited some Aegan Islands near Greece, were they headed west and met with Greek Islanders, who became their trading partners. They also had a little contact with mainland Greeks.

They went to northern Egypt in search of more wealth. Pirates engaged them in a naval battle, defeating them. They decided to go back to Anatolia, through Syria and Israel, who weren't hostile, and then got to Sinai, where the natives, or the Montinu, attacked. They defeated the natives, sacked a few villages, then left the Montinu alone. They got to Egypt, eager to trade the newly-gained Sinai plunder amongst themselves, gaining Egyptian wealth in exchange for exported goods. They then were allowed to settle in major cities on Egypt's northern coast, where the pirates, probably marauding Numidians, where defeated by Egyptians. The Sea People gained little territory, despite their goal to subdue surrounding villages with riches.

Plateau Anatolians

The Plateau Anatolians expanded down from their mountains, reaching Sea People villages. They passed in peace; no Anatolians were at war with each other.

Hittites

Main article: Hittites

There, the the Plateau Anatolians were united, and were joined by a probably Crimean tribe that started the Hittite Empire. The Crimean Hittites acknowledged Plateau Anatolian rule. The Plateau Anatolians ruled the empire. Eventually, through much success, the Hittites finally had the goal of creating a unified Anatolian empire. The leaders of each Anatolian group joined, but some tribes from each didn't want to and revolted. They, however, lacked unity, and became city-states. Through the conquest of these city-states, they achieved their goal.

Religion

Eastern Anatolian peoples practiced native beliefs. The Hittites influenced every Anatolian culture's religion. The Mesopotamians and Assyrians along with Syriacs, influenced Eastern Anatolians, who carried all of their Mesopotamian and Syrian influences, along with their one, to the Hittites. Western Anatolians brought influence they got from Greeks, mixed with their own believed, and perhabs a little bit of Egptian beliefs, and Jewish beliefs (although fully-Jewish Anatolians, Middle Easternerns of any nation, and Jewish Turks are present). The Hittites mixed all these beliefs and made the native beliefs of the western Middle East related.

Submitting to other empires

The Anatolians faced many problems. They were not 1 culture, but a bunch off little, somewhat related cultures and groups. This is why the Hittites struggled to unite them. The Hittite empire never dominated the whole peninsula. They spread from the center and took a large part. Although all Anatolian groups could be found in the empire, they didn't rule every Anatolian. There was never a single Empire of the Anatolians. There were many large empires nearby. The Anatolian groups who were ethnically separated now divided further; each group divided into states. When the Hittite Empire was destroyed by the Assyrians, who were conquered by Persia, the groups no longer existed as close villages, but states briefly emerged. Lydia, Phrygium, Gordium, and Cilicia were the most notable. Greece then set up colonies on the coast. When the Greek Empire fell to Rebels, who attacked each other, one side lead by Spartans and the other by Athenians, the colonies became city-states, like the rest of Greece. Alexander of Macedon (modern-day: Macedonia) took power, the Persians began conquering the weaker Eastern Anatolian states, who submitted. They then headed west. Many of the wstern states were powerful, but not as powerful as Persia. They could actually put up an almost-even battle with Persia, only if Persia was the invader. They submitted to Alexander. They were granted some autonomy, and survived as states under the Greek empire for centuries. Anatolian history covers a relatively large period of time, as for many years no events important to the Anatolians, especially because of lack of unity. Anatolians were like Siberians and Native Americans, in the sense that they were broken up. They were part of Rome following it's conquest of Greece. Their culture fell asleep, and then woke up in the time of the crusades from the 11th to 13th centuries, with waring Seljuk Turks pouring out of Central Asia from the region in and around the Caspian, and breakaway Immigrant Turks, the Ottomans, Kurds, Saracens, Byzantine Greek Christians, and Crusaders from Europe, along with a few states they set up in the area in and around Syria, including Anatolia. Another group, the Danishmends, fought to protect their land, and interests.