Μῑ́λητος Milet | |
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Location | Balat, Didim, Aydın Province, Turkey |
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Region | Aegean Region |
Coordinates | 37°31′49″N 27°16′42″E / 37.53028°N 27.27833°E |
Type | Settlement |
Area | 90 ha (220 acres) |
History | |
Builder | Minoans (later Mycenaeans) and then Ionians (the later on a former Anatolian site)[1][2][3] |
Site notes | |
Public access | Yes |
Website | Miletus Archaeological Site |
History of Greece |
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Miletus (/maɪˈliːtəs/; Greek: Μῑ́λητος, romanized: Mī́lētos; Hittite: 𒈪𒅋𒆷𒉿𒀭𒁕 Mīllawānda or 𒈪𒆷𒉿𒋫 Milawata (exonyms); Latin: Mīlētus; Turkish: Milet) was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia, near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Ionia.[3][4][5] Its ruins are located near the modern village of Balat in Aydın Province, Turkey. Before the Persian rule that started in the 6th century BC, Miletus was considered among the greatest and wealthiest of Greek cities.[6][7]
Evidence of first settlement at the site has been made inaccessible by the rise of sea level and deposition of sediments from the Maeander. The first available evidence is of the Neolithic. In the early and middle Bronze Age the settlement came under Minoan influence. Recorded history at Miletus begins with the records of the Hittite Empire, and the Mycenaean records of Pylos and Knossos, in the Late Bronze Age. Miletus was a Mycenaean stronghold on the coast of Asia Minor from c. 1450 to 1100 BC.
The 13th century BC saw the arrival of Luwian language speakers from south central Anatolia calling themselves the Carians. Later in that century other Greeks arrived. The city at that time rebelled against the Hittite Empire. After the fall of that empire the city was destroyed in the 12th century BC and starting about 1000 BC was resettled extensively by the Ionian Greeks. Legend offers an Ionian foundation event sponsored by a founder named Neleus from the Peloponnesus.
The Greek Dark Ages were a time of Ionian settlement and consolidation in an alliance called the Ionian League. The Archaic Period of Greece began with a sudden and brilliant flash of art and philosophy on the coast of Anatolia. In the 6th century BC, Miletus was the site of origin of the Greek philosophical (and scientific) tradition, when Thales, followed by Anaximander and Anaximenes (known collectively, to modern scholars, as the Milesian school), began to speculate about the material constitution of the world, and to propose speculative naturalistic (as opposed to traditional, supernatural) explanations for various natural phenomena.
The political history of Miletos/Millawanda, as it can be reconstructed from limited sources, shows that despite having a material culture dominated by Aegean influences it was more often associated with Anatolian powers such as Arzawa and the Hittites than it was with the presumed Aegean power of Ahhijawa
They had certainly been familiar with the territory earlier, in the Late Bronze Age, by way of commercial and political interests, and perhaps even trading posts, but now they came to stay. In the case of such settlements as Miletus and Ephesus, as implied, the Greeks chose the sites of former Anatolian cities of prominence.