Central Anatolia in the 6th century bc: An overview in the light of written records and new archaeological discoveries

The 6th century BC has been an important breakpoint for the Near East. Historical models and ideas which were taken as a role-model by the Eastern and Western civizilations can be clearly seen during this century. While these two civilizations conquered new lands through great victories for their own ideals, they were forced to live under the command of the other through defeats in the past. After a while, this aforementioned compulsion gave them the opportunity to unite and produce new cultural elements. At the beginning of the century, Medes and Lydians that are the representatives of two civilizations fought against each other and none of the parties gained a decisive victory. The conflicts ended with an agreement and the final solution to the crisis was postponed. It seems that a representative change in one of the parties caused the other party to terminate the agreement and the conflicts around Kızılırmak Bend which is a buffer zone between parties started again in the middle of the century. The approaches following Ancient Greek tradition accept that Kızılırmak River formed a border between Medes and Lydians and there was an imperial dominance of Medes in the east of Kızılırmak River. In this thesis, we examined three main issues including the expansion of Medes over Kızılırmak Bend before Pteria Battle (547 BC) and Thymbra Battle (547 BC), the development of satrapy, which is Persian administration model, over the bend after the aforementioned battles and the situation of societies within Kızılırmak Bend both before and after the aforementioned battles based on written records and new archaeological works. The aim of this thesis is to establish new approaches and proposals along with contributing to current ones to better understanding of the political and cultural construction of the Central Anatolia, especially Kızılırmak Bend, during the 6th century BC.