 |
|
Geoffrey & Françoise
Summers |
In the Imperial Hittite period, the granitic tor that was to become the Kale is thought to have been the sacred Mount Daha (Gurney 1995), where the Great King performed religious rites during the annual spring festival. Whether the mountain retained vestiges of sanctity into the mid first millennium B.C. and, if so, what influence such memories might have played in selection of the site for a new city, is unknown. It has been suggested that Pteria was founded following a six year war between the Lydians and the Medes which culminated in the "Battle of the Eclipse" on the afternoon of May 25 in 585 B.C. The eclipse was taken as a sign that hostilities should cease and a peace treaty between the Medes and the Lydians was brokered by the King of Cilicia and one Nabonidas of Babylon (perhaps the later king of the same name). This treaty fixed the boundary between the two powers at the Halys river (modern Kızılırmak), sealed by a royal marriage between Astyages, king of the Medes, and Ariennes, daughter of Allyates of Lydia (and thus sister of Croesus). The foundation of Pteria would have followed acceptance of the treaty and would have been the centre-piece of the new western extension of the Median Empire. About 550 B.C. Astyages was overthrown by Cyrus the Great. Croesus, following his divinely sanctioned mistake of crossing the Halys in the belief that he would destroy the Persian Empire rather than his own, enslaved the Pterians and, in Herodotus' account, chased the innocent Cappadocians from the surrounding countryside. Expansionist Lydian aggression, however, was soon halted by Cyrus at the indecisive "Battle of Pteria", fought on the plain below. Croesus returned to Sardis and, to his surprise, was pursued by Cyrus who was famously victorious. Few references to Pteria occur in the ancient sources: Herodotus (I. 76) locates it east of the Halys and due south of Sinop, describing it as the strongest place in that part of Cappadocia. The Byzantine geographer Stephanos knew that it had been a city of the Medes. It is noteworthy that Herodotus, and Stephanos if he was not using Herodotus as a source, distinguishes between the native Cappadocians and the Pterians. No epigraphic evidence exists to prove this identification beyond all doubt, and the intensity of the catastrophic fire was so great that no timbers have yet been recovered for dendrochronological dating (which would clinch the matter), but the status objects (described below) and pottery are consistent with a date in the second quarter of the sixth century B.C. The position of Kerkenes, the indications of the date, the centralised planning, the eastern appearance of the architecture, the short life, the deliberate destruction by fire and the subsequent abandonment, when combined, make a very strong case for the correctness of the identification.
|
|
|
