Troas or
The Troad is the historical name of the Biga peninsula (
modern TurkishTurkish is spoken as a first language by over 63 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Cyprus, with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and other...
:
Biga Yarımadası,
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
:
Τρωάς) in the northwestern part of
AnatoliaAnatolia is a geographic region of Western Asia, comprising most of the modern Republic of Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Caucasus to the northeast, the Iranian plateau to the southeast, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Aegean Sea to the west...
,
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
. This region now is part of the
ÇanakkaleÇanakkale is a province of Turkey, located in the northwestern part of the country. It takes its name from the town of Çanakkale.Like Istanbul, Çanakkale province has a European and an Asian part. The European part is formed by the Gallipoli peninsula, while the Asian part is largely coterminous...
provinceTurkey is divided into 81 provinces, called il and rayonler in Turkish ....
of
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
. Bounded by the
DardanellesThe Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart the Bosporus. It is located at approximately...
to the northwest, by the
Aegean SeaThe Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey respectively. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
to the west and separated from the rest of Anatolia by the
massifIn geology, a massif is a section of a planet's crust that is demarcated by faults or flexures. In the movement of the crust, a massif tends to retain its internal structure while being displaced as a whole. The term is also used to refer to a group of mountains formed by such a structure...
that forms Mount Ida, the Troad is drained by two main
riverA river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, a sea or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water...
s, the
ScamanderIn Greek mythology, Scamander was a river god, son of Oceanus and Tethys according to Hesiod. Scamander is also thought of as the river god, son of Zeus. By Idaea, he fathered King Teucer....
(Karamenderes) and the
SimoisSimoeis was a river of the Trojan plain and the name of its god. Like other river-gods, Simoeis was the son of Oceanus and Tethys . Simoeis had two daughters who were married into the Trojan royal family. One daughter, Astyoche, was married to Erichthonius, and the other daughter, Hieromneme was...
, which join at the area containing the
ruinsRuins is a term used to describe the remains of human-made architecture: structures that were once complete but which have fallen into a state of partial or complete disrepair, due to lack of maintenance or deliberate acts of destruction...
of
TroyTroy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer...
.
Grenikos, Kebren, Simoeis, Rhesos, Rhodios, Heptaporos and Aisepos were seven rivers of the Troad and the names of the river gods that inhabited each river.
The region later known as the Troad was called
WilusaWilusa was a city of the late Bronze Age Assuwa confederation of western Anatolia.It is known from six references in 13th century BC Hittite sources, including...
by the
HittitesThe Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family and established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia ca. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height ca...
.
Ancient Region of Anatolia
Troad |
| |
| Location |
North-western AnatoliaAnatolia is a geographic region of Western Asia, comprising most of the modern Republic of Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Caucasus to the northeast, the Iranian plateau to the southeast, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Aegean Sea to the west...
|
| Historical capital |
TroyTroy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer...
|
| Roman province |
Asia |
| |
Troas or
The Troad is the historical name of the Biga peninsula (
modern TurkishTurkish is spoken as a first language by over 63 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Cyprus, with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and other...
:
Biga Yarımadası,
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
:
Τρωάς) in the northwestern part of
AnatoliaAnatolia is a geographic region of Western Asia, comprising most of the modern Republic of Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Caucasus to the northeast, the Iranian plateau to the southeast, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Aegean Sea to the west...
,
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
. This region now is part of the
ÇanakkaleÇanakkale is a province of Turkey, located in the northwestern part of the country. It takes its name from the town of Çanakkale.Like Istanbul, Çanakkale province has a European and an Asian part. The European part is formed by the Gallipoli peninsula, while the Asian part is largely coterminous...
provinceTurkey is divided into 81 provinces, called il and rayonler in Turkish ....
of
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
. Bounded by the
DardanellesThe Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart the Bosporus. It is located at approximately...
to the northwest, by the
Aegean SeaThe Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey respectively. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
to the west and separated from the rest of Anatolia by the
massifIn geology, a massif is a section of a planet's crust that is demarcated by faults or flexures. In the movement of the crust, a massif tends to retain its internal structure while being displaced as a whole. The term is also used to refer to a group of mountains formed by such a structure...
that forms Mount Ida, the Troad is drained by two main
riverA river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, a sea or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water...
s, the
ScamanderIn Greek mythology, Scamander was a river god, son of Oceanus and Tethys according to Hesiod. Scamander is also thought of as the river god, son of Zeus. By Idaea, he fathered King Teucer....
(Karamenderes) and the
SimoisSimoeis was a river of the Trojan plain and the name of its god. Like other river-gods, Simoeis was the son of Oceanus and Tethys . Simoeis had two daughters who were married into the Trojan royal family. One daughter, Astyoche, was married to Erichthonius, and the other daughter, Hieromneme was...
, which join at the area containing the
ruinsRuins is a term used to describe the remains of human-made architecture: structures that were once complete but which have fallen into a state of partial or complete disrepair, due to lack of maintenance or deliberate acts of destruction...
of
TroyTroy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer...
.
Grenikos, Kebren, Simoeis, Rhesos, Rhodios, Heptaporos and Aisepos were seven rivers of the Troad and the names of the river gods that inhabited each river.
History
The region later known as the Troad was called
WilusaWilusa was a city of the late Bronze Age Assuwa confederation of western Anatolia.It is known from six references in 13th century BC Hittite sources, including...
by the
HittitesThe Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family and established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia ca. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height ca...
. This identification was first put forth by
Emil ForrerEmil Orcitirix Gustav Forrer was a Swiss Assyriologist and Hittitologist....
, but largely disputed by most Hittite experts until 1983 when Houwink ten Cate showed that two fragments were from the same original
cuneiformCuneiform script is the earliest known writing system in the world. Cuneiform writing emerged in the Sumerian civilization of southern Iraq around the 34th century BC during the middle Uruk period, beginning as a pictographic system of writing...
tablet and in his discussion of the restored letter showed that Wilusa was correctly placed in northwestern Anatolia. According to
Trevor BryceTrevor Robert Bryce is a Hittitologist specializing in ancient and classical Near-eastern history. His book, The Kingdom of the Hittites, is much read among English speaking readers since the study of the Hittites has predominantly been a German-dominated field...
, Hittite texts indicate a number of Ahhiyawan raids on Wilusa during the
13th century BCThe 13th century BC was the period from 1300 to 1201 BC.-Events:*1300 BC: Cemetery H culture comes to an end.*1292 BC: End of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, start of the Nineteenth Dynasty....
, which may have resulted with the overthrow of king
WalmuWalmu was an early king of Wilusa, later Troas....
.
Bryce also reports that archeological surveys conducted by John Bintliff in the 1970s show that a powerful kingdom that held sway over northwestern Anatolia was based at Troy.
The kings of Pergamum (now
BergamaBergama refers to a city and its surrounding district in İzmir Province, in the Aegean Region of the Republic of Turkey...
) later ceded the territory of the Troad to the
Roman RepublicThe Roman Republic was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterized by a republican form of government. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, c...
. Under the
EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
, the territory of the Troad became part of the province of Asia; under the later
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
, it was included in the
themaThe themes or themata were the main administrative divisions of the middle Byzantine Empire. They were established in the seventh century in the aftermath of the Muslim conquests of Byzantine territory and replaced the earlier provincial system established by emperors Diocletian and Constantine...
of the Aegean Islands. Following its conquest by the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
, the Troad formed part of the
sanjakSanjaks were administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire. Sanjak, and the variant spellings sandjak, sanjaq, and sinjaq, are English transliterations of the Turkish word sancak, meaning district, banner, or flag...
of Biga.
In the New Testament
PaulPaul of Tarsus, also called Paul the Apostle, the Apostle Paul, or Saint Paul, Paul of Tarsus, also called Paul the Apostle, the Apostle Paul, or Saint Paul, Paul of Tarsus, also called Paul the Apostle, the Apostle Paul, or Saint Paul, ...
visited Troas.. He also refers to Troas when he asks his fellow worker
TimothyTimothy was a first-century Christian bishop who died about AD 80. Evidence from the New Testament also has him functioning as coadjutor of Saint Paul.-Life:...
out of
EphesusEphesus was an ancient Roman and Greek city on the west coast of Anatolia, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek period....
, to get his coat there. This was a journey of about 500km. Paul was accompanied by
LukeLuke the Evangelist was an Early Christian writer who the Church Fathers such as Jerome and Eusebius said was the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles....
.