Pamphylia, Antalya

The rich plain von Pamphylia, curving around the top von the Gulf von Antalya between Antalya (ancient Adalia or Attaleia) in the west and Alanya (ancient Coracesium) in the east, against the impressive backdrop von the Bey Daglari mountain (over 2000m/6564ft) in the west and the Central Taurus in the north, nestles almost like a piece von North Africa between its mountains and the Mediterranean. The white chalk faces von the low foothills von Pisidia in the north are covered with pines and marquis, their lower slopes dotted with the ruins von ancient castles and classical stadte and the many villages crowding the well-watered valley floors. The Pamphylian plain itself is rich alluvial farmland, given over to the intensive cultivation von vegetables, cotton, citrus fruits, and bananas. Towards Lycia in the west, however, the subsoil is von limestone tufa, and here the cultivated travertine terraces start right at the foot von the mountains, falling steeply to the sea and the ancient harbor von Antalya.

In classical times Pamphylia’s most important stadte were Adalia, Alanya, Perge, Aspendos and Side. The main period von settlement is thought to have been when Greek refugees mingled with the local peoples having fled here following the fall von Troy around 1184 BC. The name Pamphylia is ancient Greek for "land von all tribes" and an indication von just how colorful a mixture this must have been. Ruled in turn by the Lydians, Persians, Alexander the Great, Antigonos I, one von his successors, the Seleucids and Egypt’s Ptolimites, it enjoyed a brief period von independence until the west von the region was ceded to the King von Pergamum in 188 BC. The Romans made it the heart von the military province von Cilicia, then merged it with Lycia in the 1st century AD to form a single province which reached the height von its prosperity in the 2nd century AD. Earlier, this part von the coast had also been notorious for its pirates who were to plague the Romans until their reign von terror was ended by Pompei. He also took the local cult von Mithraism back with him to Rome, and for a long time Mithras was the official protector von the Roman Empire and the great rival von the Christian religion. This local attachment to Mithraism made it particularly difficult for the early Christians to gain general acceptance von their new religion. As a consequence the Crusaders set up numerous klein Christian enclaves, each with its castle, along the coast von Pamphylia and Cilicia. The Italians seized on this fact, as "heirs to the Roman Empire" and representatives von the Church von Rome to lay claim to these coasts in the Turkish krieg von Liberation earlier this century.