The history and culture of eastern Turkey is simply staggering. For millennia a complex crossing point of armies, traders, religions and travellers the region has hosted a rollcall of ancient peoples and cultures, some only now being rediscovered by the discerning traveller: Urartians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Mitannians, Commagenians, Armenians and Ottomans to name a few. Their legacy is an extraordinarily rich trove of sites: from the world’s oldest megaliths at Göbeklitepe, and the brooding stone figures of Mount Nemrut, through to the outstanding mosaics at the Zeugma Museum and beautiful medieval churches of Lake Van, the region is a compelling destination. 

Eastern Turkey is a rugged area comprising a mountainous north and a high arid plateau of 600m in elevation towards the south. There is evidence of habitation here from earliest times and by the Neolithic period several settlements had developed, most famously Göbekli Tepe. This is considered one of the first examples of man-made monumental architecture and is over 5,000 years older than Stonehenge. In time trade networks developed between the region and Mesopotamia to the south and by 1300 BC the Hittites, with their base in central Anatolia, had extended their hegemony over the Upper Euphrates. By the 14th century BC the rising power of Assyria, based largely in what is now northern Iraq, started to expand northwards and by the 7th century BC held sway over vast areas of eastern Turkey. Beyond Lake Van they came up against the Kingdom of Urartu. By the 4th century BC the Seleucid Empire began an expansionist policy which in time dominated the whole area before being eroded by the eastward growth of the mighty Roman Empire. The region became a buffer zone between Rome, Parthia and the Kingdom of Armenia. With the growth of Islam the region was dominated by the Umayyad Caliphate and became of zone of conflict between Arab and Byzantine armies. By the 16th century AD the region was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and since 1923 has been sovereign territory of the Turkish Republic. This is indeed an area with a rich and captivating history.