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A unique trip into the heart of the forgotten kingdoms
(13 Nights and 14 Days)
Led by a specialist and distinguished
scholars who will contribute to the tour.
Since the time
of the Bible, the land and people of Anatolia have
played a major role in the history of civilizations.
From the dawn of time it was in Anatolia that the
history of mankind began to unfold. Some of the earliest
towns ever established existed on its soil. Writing was
first employed in Anatolia in the days of the city-states.
Thousands of Assyrian cuneiform tablets have been found
in the Assyrian colony of Kültepe. These tablets
represent priceless windows into the contemporary life.
When Western travelers first
discovered the immense ruins of Boğazköy in the 19th
century, the finds seemed at first to be a complete
puzzle. But the memory of the Hittites had not perished
completely; there was after all a famous reference in
the Old Testament to "Uriel the Hittite". And so we
began to discover that the unique art of the Hittites
had developed from a happy cross-fertilization of the
cultures of the indigenous Hattic and immigrant Indo-European
people.
About 1250 B.C. another onset of
invasions began and the civilizations of the Hittites
and their neighbors the Mycenaean Greeks were destroyed
so thoroughly that, as we have seen, all memory of the
Hittites was lost until modern times. In Central Asia
Minor, the Phrygians created a great civilization, which
belonged essentially to the Greek sphere but was also
strongly influenced by the Neo-Hittites and Urartians.
Participants in this tour will be led into the depth of
the Phrygian Highlands within the provinces of
Eskişehir, Afyon and Kütahya triangle.
Tour Dates:
Sunday 08 - Saturday 21 June 2008
Sunday 22 - Saturday 05 July 2008
Sunday 06 - Saturday 19 July 2008
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