Babylon – region on the lower reaches of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris; major power in the Near East during the 2nd mill. BCE

Bacchylides – Greek lyric poet in the 5th cent. BCE

Ballı Dağ – hill south of the plain of Troy; in the 19th cent. assumed to be site of ancient Troy

Barker Webb, Philip – English botanist and geologist (1793–1854), visited Hisarlık in 1819

Bass, George – U.S. archaeologist and one of the early practitioners of underwater archaeology

Baumgartner, Emmanuèle – French philologist (1940–2005), specialist in medieval literature

Bay – Egyptian chancellor at the time of Siptah and Twosret (1193–1187 BCE)

Becker, Helmut – German geophysicist and geoarchaeologist, specialist for magnetometry

Benoît de Sainte-Maure – 12th cent. French-speaking author from Sainte-Maure in the county of Touraine, France, well-known for his Roman de Troie, a novel about the Trojan War

Beşik Bay – natural bay, approx. 10 km southwest of Hisarlık

Beşik plain – embayment and beach near Troy, formed during the Bronze Age through accumulation of sediment

Best, Jan G. P. – Dutch prehistorian

Beycesultan – large (> 1 km in diameter) archaeological site near Çivril in western Turkey, inhabited from the 4th mill. until 1700 BCE; excavated by James Mellaart between 1954 and 1959

Beyköy – tell settlement north of the Turkish city of Afyon

Biga peninsula – region in northwestern Asia Minor making up the ancient Troad

Bintliff, John – English landscape archaeologist, professor at the University of Leiden

Bithynia – Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor

Bittel, Kurt – German prehistorian (1907–1991), former excavator of Hattuša and president of the German Archaeological Institute

Blegen, Carl – U.S. classical archaeologist (1887–1971), excavator of Troy and Pylos

Bronze Age – cultural era of the Old World whose begin and end differ from one region to the next, in the Eastern Mediterranean it lasted from 3000 to 1200 BCE

Burckhardt, Jean Louis – Swiss traveler, geographer and orientalist (1784–1817)

Büyük Menderes River – river in western Asia Minor, called Maeander in ancient times

Byzantine period – the continuation of the Roman Empire in the East during late antiquity and the Middle Ages

Byzantium – predecessor city of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul)

Caldera – a special sort of volcanic crater that forms when an emptied magma chamber collapsed

Callinus – an ancient Greek poet who lived in the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor in the mid-7th cent. BCE

Calvert, Frank – English amateur archaeologist (1828–1908) who drew Heinrich Schliemann’s attention to the location of ancient Troy on hill Hisarlık

Canaan – historical term (common from 1500 to 1200 BCE) for the region along the Syrian-Palestinian coast

Çanakkale – provincial capital in Turkey, located on the southern shore of the Dardanelles

Çandarlı – town located on a spit of land at the Aegean coast in Turkey’s Izmir Province

Cape St. Mary – the southwest corner of the Biga peninsula, the mainland cape that is facing Lesbos

Cape Uluburun (Grand Cape) – spit of land in the Antalya Province in southern Turkey; in 1982, the wreck of a merchant ship dating from around 1300 BCE was discovered off the coast of Uluburun

Caria – ancient landscape in the southwest of Asia Minor

Carians – people who resided in southwestern Asia Minor; according to Homer allies of the Trojans

Carthage – ancient city on present-day’s Tunisian coast, founded by Phoenician settlers in the 9th cent. BCE

Çatalhöyük – large settlement dating to the Neolithic, situated on the Anatolian plateau in present-day Turkey; since 2012 part of the UNESCO world heritage

Catalogue of ships – part of Homer’s Iliad providing a list of Greek troops with ships, leaders and places of origin

Chania – Minoan port city in the north of Crete

Chronicle of Fredegar – world chronicle from the 7th cent. CE, written in Latin

Ciconia – province west of Thrace, mentioned by Homer as an ally of the Trojans

Cilicia – the south coastal region of Asia Minor in antiquity

Civilization – a society in which cities, a centralized government system, and trade relations had existed and which had also possessed the knowledge of writing

Clarke, Edward Daniel – English mineralogist (1769–1822), geology professor at the University of Cambridge

Classical archaeology – archeological sub-discipline that deals with the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean, especially the Greek and Roman

Claudius Aelianus – Roman author and teacher of rhetoric (175–235), provides numerous quotations from the works of earlier authors, which are otherwise lost

Codex Venetus A – most famous passed-down manuscript of Homer’s Iliad, from the 10th cent. CE

Colophon – an ancient city in Ionia, said to have been destroyed in the Trojan War

Colossi of Memnon – two massive stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, west of the modern city of Luxor

Constantine the Great – Roman emperor (reigned 306–337)

Constantinople – predecessor city of Istanbul (also please see Byzantium)

Cook, John Manuel – a British classical archaeologist (1910–1994)

Corinth – Greek city on the Isthmus of Corinth, connects the Peloponnese with mainland Greece

Cretan hieroglyphs – still undeciphered Cretan script, in use ca. 20th–15th cent. BCE

Critias – unfinished work by the Greek philosopher Plato

Croesus – the last king of Lydia, famous for his wealth and generosity (reigned ca. 555–541 BCE)

Cuneiform Luwian – writing system used by the Hittites to write texts in Luwian; it differs only marginally from the usual Hittite cuneiform script

Cuneiform script – one of the earliest systems of writing, consisting of wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, emerged in Sumer in the late 4th mill. BCE

Cybele – goddess who had originally been worshiped in Phrygia (Asia Minor), later in Greece, Thrace and Rome as well

Cyclades – Greek island group in the Aegean Sea

Cycladic culture – Early Bronze Age culture of the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea, ca. 3200–2000 BCE

Cyclopean masonry – Late Bronze Age architectural style used for fortification walls

Cyme – ancient city located on the coastline of Asia Minor, said to have been destroyed in the Trojan War

Cypriot syllabary – a syllabic script used on Cyprus ca. 11th–4th cent. BCE

Cypro-Minoan – an undeciphered syllabic script used on Cyprus ca. 1550–1050 BCE

Cyzicus – Greek city on the southern coast of the Marmara Sea; today called Balız, located near Erdek

Dallam, Thomas – an English organ builder (1575–1620), kept a diary of his travels through Turkey

Danaya – ancient Egyptian name for Mycenaean Greece

Dardanelles – strait between the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara (ancient name: Hellespont)

Dares of Phrygia (Dares Phrygius) – author of a report on the fall of Troy, dating back to at least the 2nd cent. CE

Dascylium – Phrygian kingdom of Dascylium in northwestern Asia Minor during the 8th cent. BCE

Deir el-Medina – Egyptian artisan village near the Valley of the Kings in western Thebes

Democritus – an influential ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosopher (ca. 460–370 BCE) from Abdera in Thrace

Denyen – one of the tribes making up the Sea Peoples

Dictys of Crete (Dictys Cretensis) – author of a report on the fall of Troy; Latin version since the 4th cent. CE

Didyma – ancient sanctuary with a famous Apollo temple, located in the west of present-day Turkey

Dio Chrysostom – Greek orator, writer and philosopher (1st cent. CE) from Prusa (present-day Bursa)

Diodorus Siculus – Greek historian (1st cent. BCE) from Sicily

Dionysius of Halicarnassus – Greek scholar and historian (1st cent. BCE)

Dodecanese – group of Greek islands in the eastern Aegean

Dörpfeld, Wilhelm – German architect and archaeologist (1853–1940); directed excavations in Troy after the death of Heinrich Schliemann

Dümrek – river (ancient name Simoeis) that runs through the Troad and flows into the Karamenderes near Hisarlık

Early Iron Age – the period after the Bronze Age, i. e. the first few centuries after 1200 BCE

Edremit – city on the Turkish Mediterranean coast (at the Gulf of Edremit) in the western province of Balıkesir

Egyptology – academic discipline that explores all aspects of the ancient Egyptian civilization until the end of Roman rule in the 4th cent. CE

Ekron – ancient Philistine city state in historic Palestine (present-day Israel)

Elam – ancient civilization in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran

Eleanor of Aquitaine – wealthy and powerful woman during the High Middle Ages (ca. 1122–1204)

Epano Englianos – archaeological site of the Palace of Nestor at Pylos on the southern part of the Peloponnesian west coast

Ephesus – important Greek city on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, about 70 km south of Izmir

Epic Cycle – collection of ancient Greek hexameter verses that tell the story of the Trojan War and have been passed down orally for a long time

Epicharmus of Kos – Greek comic playwright (550–460 BCE)

Ergani Maden – rich copper mines in the Diyarbakır Province of southeastern Turkey

Erichthonius – father of Tros, the legendary founder of Troy

Etruria – ancient landscape and heartland of the Etruscans in central Italy

Etruscans – ancient people that had settled during the 9th cent. BCE in Etruria in central Italy

Euboea – second-largest Greek island, separated from the mainland by the narrow Gulf of Euboea

Euphrates – the western of the two rivers that define Mesopotamia, flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq and empties into the Persian Gulf

Euripides – Greek tragedian (485–406 BCE)

Eusebius of Caesarea – Christian theologian and historian of late antiquity, probably from Palestine (ca. 260–340)

Evans, Arthur – British archaeologist (1851–1941), considered to be the discoverer of the Minoan civilization, excavator of the Minoan palace of Knossos on Crete

Forchhammer, Peter Wilhelm – German philologist and archaeologist (1801–1894) at the Christian Albrecht University of Kiel, produced a map of the plain of Troy

Forrer, Emil – Swiss assyriologist and hittitologist (1894–1986), devoted himself to the decipherment of Hittite and Luwian writings

Fredegar – a term used for the so-called chronicle of Fredegar dating to the 7th cent. CE

Gallipoli – peninsula that is located in the European part of present-day Turkey, borders on the Dardanelles in the south and on the Gulf of Saros in the north

Ganymedes – according to Diodorus Siculus, a son of Tros, the legendary founder of Troy

Gargarum – a city on the foot of Mt. Ida, according to Dictys of Crete destroyed by the Greek hero Ajax

Gath – ancient city in historical Palestine (present-day Israel)

Gaza – ancient port city on the Mediterranean coast of historic Palestine (today located in the Gaza Strip)

Gedevre Tepesi – small Late Bronze Age citadel near Lake Gyges

Gediz – river in western Turkey that drains into the Gulf of Izmir about 30 km northwest of Izmir, it formed an about 20-km wide river delta

Geoarchaeology – research discipline dedicated to the reconstruction of ancient environments and the correlations between landscape development and human habitation

German Archaeological Institute – Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI), archaeological research institution of the German Federal Foreign Office

German new humanism or Neuhumanismus – movement within the humanities that emerged in Germany in 1750; it revived the ideas of classical antiquity

German Research Foundation – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), federal German research funding organization

Gökçeada – island in the Aegean Sea, west of the Gallipoli peninsula; formerly called Imbros

Gordias – name of at least two members of the royal rulers of Phrygia

Gordium – the capital city of ancient Phrygia, modern Yassıhüyük, about 70–80 km southwest of Ankara

Gournia – ancient Minoan port city on the north coast of eastern Crete

Great Hittite Kingdom – term for the Hittite Kingdom at the time of its greatest expansion (ca. 1350–1200 BCE)

Greek Dark Ages – period ca. 12th–8th cent. BCE in ancient Greece, when the knowledge of writing had been lost

Grosseto – province in Tuscany, Italy

Guido de Columnis, Guido delle Colonne – judge and writer (ca. 1220–1290) from the Sicilian province capital of Messina

Gül-Dağ – mountain ridge on the western shore of Lake Gyges, crowned by the fortress of Kaymakçı

Gulf of Edremit – embayment south of Mt. Ida, forming the southern border of the Troad

Gyges – name of a Lydian king (reigned 716–678 BCE)

Gyges – today Lake Marmara, a lake in Manisa Province, western Turkey, in the alluvial valley of Gediz River

Hagia Sophia – Byzantine church that was built in late antiquity, today a landmark of Istanbul

Haley, Joseph Boyd – U.S. linguist, found out that hundreds of place names in Greece originated from a pre-Greek linguistic family during the 3rd mill. BCE

Halicarnassus – ancient Greek city, predecessor of modern Bodrum in Turkey

Halizon – an Anatolian tribe from the south coast of the Black Sea; according to Homer allies of the Trojans

Halys – please see Kızılırmak

Hama – Syrian city on the Orontes River that has been settled since the 5th mill. BCE

Hanay Tepe – Bronze Age settlement in the southeastern part of Troas, a few kilometers south of Hisarlık

Hapalla – Hittite name for a state located west of Central Anatolia

Hatshepsut – Egyptian queen (ruled 1479–1457 BCE)

Hatti – name of the Hittite empire

Hattians – people in Central Anatolia before the arrival of the Hittite tribes (also called Proto-Hattians)

Hattili – language of the Hattians, the indigenous population of Central Anatolia

Hattuša – capital of the Hittite Empire; near the present-day village of Boğazkale, 150 km east of Ankara

Hattušili III – Hittite king (reigned ca. 1266–1236 BCE)

Hau-nebut – Egyptian term for “inhabitants of the Aegean”

Hector – figure of Greek mythology; eldest son of Priam and commander-in-chief of the Trojan army

Hellespont – ancient name of the Dardanelles

Henry II Plantagenet – King of England (ruled 1154–1189), married to Eleanor of Aquitaine

Hephaestus – Greek god of fire and metal arts

Heracles – hero of Greek mythology

Heraclides – descendants of Heracles in Greek mythology

Heraclitus – Heraclitus of Ephesus, a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher (ca. 535–475 BCE) from Ionia

Hermos – ancient name of the Gediz River

Herodotus – Greek historian (484–430 BCE)

Heroic age – the Greek heroic age, according to Hesiod, one of the five ages of man in mythology; the period between the coming of the Greeks to Thessaly and the Greek return from Troy

Hesiod – Greek poet (8th–7th cent. BCE)

Hierapolis – according to Dictys Cretensis, the name of a city that was attacked by Achilles during the Trojan War

Hieroglyphic Luwian – Indo-European language common in Asia Minor ca. 20th–6th cent. BCE that used pictorial script signs

Hieronymus – please see Saint Jerome

Hippo – a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher (5th cent. BCE)

Hippodamus – ancient Greek architect (498–408 BCE) from Miletus, considered to be the father of urban planning

Hipponax – ancient Greek poet (6th cent. BCE) from Ephesus and later Klazomenai

Hisarlık – name of a tell on the eastern edge of the Karamenderes floodplain; since 1870 excavation site of the fortress of Ilion, royal residence of the kings of Troy

Hittite – also known as Nesite, extinct Indo-European language once spoken by the Hittites, recorded in documents from the 16th cent. to the beginning of the 12th cent. BCE

Hittite hieroglyphs – early, misleading term for hieroglyphic Luwian

Hittites – Hittite culture; ancient Anatolian people who established an empire centered in northern Central Anatolia that lasted from about 1600 to 1200 BCE

Hittitologist – a specialist in the study of the ancient Hittites

Homecomings – lost part of the Epic Cycle which told the entire history of the Trojan War in verse

Homer – first poet of the West, author of the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey (probably 8th cent. BCE); his actual existence is disputed

Hrozný, Bedřich – Austrian-Czech linguist and orientalist (1879–1952), decipherer of the Hittite script

Iasos – ancient Greek city in Caria

Ibycus – Greek poet (6th cent. BCE)

Ida – please see Mount Ida

Idomeneus – in Greek mythology a king of Crete and participant in the Trojan War

Iliad – epic tale by Homer that covers a time near the end of the Trojan War

Ilion, Ilios – name of the royal fortress of Troy as used by Homer

Ilus – son of Tros, said to have founded Troy in a plain, naming it after himself Ilium

Indo-European language – a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, predominant in ancient Anatolia and Mycenaean Greek

Iolcos – unexcavated Mycenaean citadel located beneath the modern town of Volos in Thessaly

Ionia – term for the central west coast of Asia Minor that had been settled by Greeks during Early Iron Age

Iron Age – cultural epoch of the Old World; here the time after 1200 BCE

Ishtar – goddess of the Sumerian and Akkadian pantheon, the divine personification of the planet Venus

Isidore of Seville – Roman Catholic bishop and historian of late antiquity, who gathered and compiled the knowledge of antiquity that had still been available (560–636)

Istidina – petty kingdom on the south coast of the Black Sea, contemporary with the Hittite empire

Išuwa – ancient kingdom, located on the upper Euphrates in Anatolia

Ithaca – island in the Ionian Sea off the western coast of Greece; home of Odys­seus according to Homer

Jablonka, Peter – an Austrian prehistorian, participated for many years in excavations and fieldwork at Troy

Jason – Greek mythological hero, leader of the Argonauts

Joseph of Exeter (Latin Josephus Iscanus) – cleric and Latin poet of the 12th cent. from Exeter in Devon county, England

Kadesh, Qadesh on the Orontes – major Syrian city of the 2nd mill. BCE; site of an important battle between Hatti and Egypt in 1275 BCE

Kadıkalesi – settlement mound on the Aegean coast of Turkey

Kaniš – please see Kültepe

Karamenderes – please see Scamander

Karkemish or Carchemish – ancient Near Eastern city on the Euphrates River at the border between Syria and Turkey

Karkiša – Late Bronze Age petty state in western Anatolia, later presumably Caria

Karnak – temple and main house of the God Amun-Ra in ancient Thebes, near present-day Luxor

Kaška – ancient Near Eastern people who had settled in northwestern Anatolia, perpetually hostile towards Hatti

KASKAL.KUR – group of cuneiform characters in Akkadian and Hittite that has been interpreted to designate underground waterways

Kayan, Ilhan – Turkish geoarchaeologist, retired professor at Ege University in Izmir

Kaymakçı – Late Bronze Age citadel, located west of Lake Marmara Gölü in the present-day Turkish province of Izmir

Keftiu – ancient Egyptian geographic term, possibly the name for Crete

Kesik – artificial incision into the coastal mountains 5 km west of Hisarlık, ca. 500 m long and 30 m deep (in Turkish “kesik” means cut)

Kesik Tepe – mound near Kesik

Kızbazı Tepesi – small Late Bronze Age fortress near Lake Gyges

Kızılırmak – Turkey’s longest river; runs through eastern Central Anatolia in a great arc (ancient name: Halys)

Kizzuwatna – Hittite name for the Cilician plains

Klazomenai – ancient Greek city on the coast of Ionia

Knossos – Minoan city and largest Minoan palace on Crete

Kober, Alice – U.S. classicist who contributed to the decipherment of Linear B

Kom al-Samak – altar at the ancient Egyptian palace complex of Malqata on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes

Kom el-Hettan – modern term for the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Luxor

Korfmann, Manfred – German archaeologist (1942–2005) specialized in prehistory; professor at the University of Tübingen, excavation director at Troy from 1988 until his death

Kretschmer, Paul – a German linguist (1866–1956), concluded in 1896 that people speaking an Anatolian language had settled in Greece before Greek-speaking people arrived there

Kültepe – important Bronze Age settlement and trading city in Central Anatolia (also called Kaniš or Neša)

Kupanta-Kurunta I – King of Arzawa during the 14th century BC; contemporary of Arnuwanda I and Tuthalija II; mentioned in the Madduwatta text

Kupanta-Kurunta II. – Great King of Arzawa during the 13th century BC; contemporary of Mursili II and Muwatalli II

Kupanta-Kurunta III. – Great King of Mira and Arzawa around 1180 BC; son of Mashuittas and grandson of Alantallis; author of the 29-meter-long Luwian hieroglyphic inscription from Beyköy

Kuzitesup – King of Karkemisch during the 12th century BC; loyal vassal of the great king of Hatti

Kythira, Cythera – Greek island opposite the southeastern tip of the Peloponnese

Labyrinth – an elaborate maze, most likely designed to keep evil spirits away

Lachish – ancient city in historic Palestine, around 40 km southwest of Jerusalem

Lake Copais – artificially drained lake at present-day Gla, an important Mycenaean settlement in Boeotia, Greece

Lalanda – an area within the Lower Land, to the southwest of the Hittite core realm

Laodicea – ancient city on the Lycus River in Phrygia, in the southwest of present-day Turkey

Laomedon – legendary king of Troy, father of Priam

Larissa, Larisa – name of an ancient city, mentioned by Homer, most likely located on the coast of the Biga peninsula southwest of Troy (also the name of a settlement at the mouth of the Hermus River)

Lasithi – region in the east of Crete

Latacz, Joachim – German classical scholar and expert on Homer, important supporter of Troy excavator Manfred Korfmann

LeChevalier, Jean Baptiste – a French scholar, astronomer and archaeologist (1752–1836), suggested that Troy was located near Pınarbaşı, at the southern end of the Scamander floodplain

Leleges – ethnic group of people in ancient Anatolia, according to Herodot and Strabo an early name for the Carians

Lemnos – an island of Greece in the northern part of the Aegean Sea, known for the Early Bronze Age settlement of Poliochne

Lesbos – Greek island in the Aegean Sea opposite the coast of Asia Minor

Levant – coasts and hinterland of the states located on the Eastern Mediterranean coast

Libya – in Late Bronze Age the land west of Egypt that had been settled by Libyan people

Linear A – script system that had been used on Crete ca. 17th–15th cent. BCE in parallel to the Cretan hieroglyphic script, from which it was probably derived

Linear B – Mycenaean syllabic script that was in use from ca. 15th to 12th cent. BCE, first in Crete, later on the Greek mainland as well

Lion Gate, Hattuša – southwest entrance in the 6.8 km long enclosure wall of Hattuša

Lion Gate, Mycenae – the main entrance of the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae, southern Greece, dating to the middle of the 13th cent. BCE

Livius Andronicus – earliest known Latin poet (around 280–207 BCE)

Lower Land – Hittite term for the region to the southwest of the Hittite core realm

Luke, Christina – U.S. archaeologist at Boston University, conducts fieldwork around Lake Gyges

Lukka – Egyptian name of a people viewed as hostile by the Egyptians; they had settled in the southwest of Anatolia (presumably Lycia)

Luwia – proposed term for western Asia Minor during the Middle and Late Bronze Age

Luwian civilization – people who lived in western Asia Minor during the 2nd mill. BCE and possessed the knowledge of writing

Luwian cuneiform – please see Cuneiform Luwian

Luwian hieroglyphic – please see Hieroglyphic Luwian

Luwians – Indo-European people who lived in western Anatolia at least since 2000 BCE

Luwili, Luwian – term for the Luwian language

Luwiya – early Hittite name for the area inhabited by Luwian-speaking people

Luxor Temple – ancient Egyptian temple, located in present-day Luxor on the east bank of the Nile River

Lycia – ancient Greek name of an area in the southwest of Asia Minor (in Hittite probably Lukka)

Lycophron – Greek grammarian and poet from the city of Chalcis on the island of Euboea (ca. 320–280 BCE)

Lydgate, John – English monk and poet (1370–1451), composed an amplified translation of the Trojan history of Guido de Columnis, the first book to be printed in the English language

Lydia – an Iron Age kingdom in western Asia Minor

Macedonia – historical area, located on the southern Balkan peninsula, presently part of the territory of Greece and the Republic of Macedonia

Maclaren, Charles – influential Scottish publisher and lay geologist (1782–1866), published two books proposing that Troy is located on Hisarlık

Maeonia – according to Homer, the inhabitants of Lydia; allies of the Trojans

Magliano Disc – circular lead disc, 8 cm in diameter, engraved with Etruscan script in a spiral pattern, discovered in Magliano, present-day Tuscany

Maidos – tell settlement in present-day Eceabat, located on the north shore of the Dardanelles

Malalas, John – a Greek chronicler from Antioch (ca. 491–578)

Malia – Minoan palace, situated on the northern coast of Crete

Manutius, Aldus – leading publisher and printer of the Venetian High Renaissance (1449–1515)

Marmara Sea – inland sea of the Mediterranean (ancient name: Propontis), connects the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea via the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles

Maša – Late Bronze Age petty state in western Asia Minor (in antiquity probably Mysia)

Mastic – a resin obtained from the mastic tree (Pistacia lentiscus), was used as a preservative in wine since the 6th mill. BCE

Meander – name in classical times for the Büyük Menderes River

Mecca – a city in the Hejaz in Saudi Arabia, birthplace of Muhammad and the site of Muhammad’s first revelation of the Quran

Medieval, medieval period – the Middle Ages in European history, 5th–15th cent. CE

Medinet Habu – mortuary temple of Ramesses III in western Thebes, built around 1170 BCE

Mehmet III – Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (ruled 1595–1603)

Melissus – Melissus of Samos, Greek philosopher (5th cent. BCE) from the island of Samos

Mellaart, James – British prehistorian (1925–2012), discovered various Neolithic tells in Turkey, in charge of the first excavations in Çatalhöyük and Beycesultan

Mellink, Machteld – U.S. prehistorian (1917–2006), expert on ancient Anatolia

Merneptah – Egyptian pharaoh (ca. 1213–1203 BCE)

Meshwesh – an ancient Libyan tribe mentioned in Egyptian sources

Mesopotamia – name of the Tigris-Euphrates river system; Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires

Messara, Mesara – coastal plain in southern Crete

Messenia – region in the southwestern part of the Peloponnese

Metrodorus – a Pre-Socratic philosopher (5th cent. BCE) from the Greek town of Lampsacus on the eastern shore of the Hellespont

Midas – emperor of Phrygia in the 8th cent. BCE

Midas city – Phrygian Yazılıkaya, a Phrygian archaeological site 27 km south of Seyitgazi in western Turkey, containing the Midas Monument

Midas Monument – a rock-cut facade showing a temple front with incised decorations, located in Midas city, contains a dedication in Old Phrygian to Midas (ΜΙΔΑΙ FΑΝΑΚΤΕΙ), dating to the 7th or 6th cent. BCE

Midas Mound – a tumulus, 53 m in height, about 300 m in diameter, on the site of ancient Gordion (modern Yassihöyük, Turkey)

Middle Ages – historical period from the end of antiquity to the beginning of modern times in European history (ca. 5th–15th cent.)

Middle Bronze Age – in the Eastern Mediterranean the time between 2000 and 1550 BCE

Middle East – southwest Asian subcontinent that includes Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, the Arabian and the Sinai Peninsula, and the Armenian and Iranian highlands

Middle Helladic – the Middle Bronze Age period on the Greek mainland (2000–1550 BCE)

Miletus – ancient Greek city on the west coast of Asia Minor

Millawanda – Hittite name for a city on the Anatolian coast of the Aegean, most probably Miletus

Milojčić, Vladimir – Yugoslav-German archaeologist (1918–1978), professor at the University of Heidelberg

Milos, Melos – Greek island in the Aegean Sea

Minoan culture – Bronze Age culture on Crete

Minos – Cretan king during Minoan times

Mira – Hittite name of a state west of Central Anatolia

Misraim – the Hebrew and Aramaic name for the land of Egypt

Mita – powerful potentate of the Muški in central Asia Minor at the end of the 8th cent. BCE, possibly identical with king Midas

Mitanni – late Bronze Age petty state in the north of present-day Syria

Monastiraki – archaeological site from Minoan times on Crete, abandoned after 1700 BCE

Mount Ida – mountain range, located in the Troad in northwestern Turkey (Turkish Kaz Dağı); also the name of the highest summit on Crete

Mount Lebanon – once densely forested mountain range in Lebanon

Muksus – Great prince of Apaisos on the Dardanelles in the Troad during the 12th cent. BC; leader of the united naval forces of the kingdoms of western Asia Minor; after 1170 BC Great King of Mira and Arzawa

Muntaner, Ramon – governor of Gallipoli from 1305 to 1309

Muršili II – Hittite emperor (reigned ca. 1318–1290 BCE)

Müsgebi – Mycenaean settlement and burial ground on the Aegean coast of western Asia Minor

Muški – a group of people that existed for several centuries on the territory of the collapsed Hittite Empire and may have played a role in the demise of the Hittites

Muwattalli II – Hittite emperor (reigned ca. 1290–1272 BCE)

Mycenae – important Bronze Age site on mainland Greece

Mycenaean culture – term for the Late Bronze Age culture (ca. 1600–1100 BCE) on the southern Greek mainland

Mysians – according to Homer, allies of the Trojans from western Asia Minor

Naevius – Roman poet (270–201 BCE)

Nagy, Gregory – professor of Classics at Harvard University, specialized in Homer and archaic Greek poetry

Neo-Hittite – Luwian-, Aramaic- and Phoenician-speaking Iron Age petty states that arose in Syria following the collapse of the Hittite Empire

Neša – please see Kültepe

Nešili, Nešite, Neshite – one of a number of terms for the Hittite language

Nestor – according to Homer, the king of Pylos, fought on the Greek side in the Trojan War

New Palace Period – time period of the Minoan civilization (ca. 1700–1430 BCE), during which a highly sophisticated architecture had developed

Nişantaş inscription – 8.5-m wide and longest known Luwian hieroglyphic inscription so far, found in Hattuša (Nişantaş = marked rock)

Non-Homeric Troy reports – all written accounts of the Trojan War, except for the Iliad by Homer

Nostoi (Returns of the Greeks) – part of the Epic Cycle that covers the homecoming of major Greek heroes like Agamemnon and Menelaus after the Trojan War

Nubia – area in the south of Egypt, whose inhabitants had been of dark skin color

nuwa’um – term used by the Assyrian merchants of Asia Minor to describe the Luwian-speaking people

Odysseus – Greek mythological hero, king of Ithaca at the time of the Trojan War

Odyssey – epic tale by Homer, telling the adventures of Odysseus on his return from the Trojan War

Oenopides – an ancient Greek mathematician and astronomer, who lived around 450 BCE on the island of Chios

Old Hittite Kingdom – Hittite rule over central Asia Minor, ca. 1650–1430 BCE

Old Palace Period – epoch of the Minoan culture during which the first palaces had been established (around 1900–1700 BCE)

Olympia – sanctuary of Zeus in the northwest of the Peloponnese, Olympic venue of antiquity

Olympic Games – religious and athletic festivals held every four years (starting in 776 BCE) at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, Greece

Onuphis – place in ancient Egypt, located in the Nile Delta

Orichalkos – Modern Greek word for brass

Orontes – river in Lebanon and Syria

Orthostats – in archaeology: squared upright-standing stone blocks

Otranto – port city in the region of Calabria, Italy

Ottoman Empire – empire of the dynasty of the Ottomans from about 1299 to 1923; in Europe also called Turkish Empire

Ovid – Roman poet (ca. 43 BCE – 17 CE)

Oxhide ingots – Late Bronze Age metal slabs of copper or tin resembling the hide of an ox

Pactolus River – today Sart Çayı, stream through Sardes, said to have been rich in gold in antiquity

Paeonia – the land and kingdom of the Paeonians, roughly coinciding with the present-day Republic of Macedonia; according to Homer, an ally of the Trojans

Pala – a region in Bronze Age Anatolia where the Palaic language was spoken; northwest of Hattuša

Palace of Nestor – major Mycenaean palace and administrative center on the hill of Epano Englianos north of Pylos in the western Peloponnese

Palaic – Indo-European language belonging to the Anatolian language group, of which only fragments have been preserved

Palestine – area between Syria and Egypt in the Levant

Palmer, Leonard Robert – English author and professor of comparative philology at the University of Oxford (1906–1984)

Paphlagonia – region north of the Hittite core territory, inhabited by the Kaška; listed by Homer among the allies of the Trojans

Papyrus Harris I, also called Great Harris Papyrus – one of the oldest and best preserved hieroglyphic papyri (40 m in length) reports, among other things, doings and achievements of Ramesses III (today exhibited in the British Museum in
London)

Paris – Greek mythological figure; son of the Trojan king Priam

Pausanias – Greek writer of the 2nd cent. from Asia Minor, wrote a detailed travel report on Greece

Pedasa – ancient Greek town located a few kilometers inland from Halicarnassus

Pedasos – a town south of Troy that was attacked by Greek forces during the Trojan War

Pefkakia Magoula – archaeological site at the port city of Volos in the Thessaly region in mainland Greece

Pelasgians – term for prehistoric non-Greek-speaking groups in Greece, which may have come from the Troad

Peleset – one of the Sea Peoples’ tribes

Peloponnese – peninsula in the south of mainland Greece, heartland of the Mycenaeans

Penelope – wife of Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey

Percote – town on the southern shore of the Dardanelles, ally of the Trojans

Pergamon – ancient Greek city in the west of Asia Minor near the Aegean coast

Pergamos – name of the royal citadel of Troy as used by Heinrich Schliemann

Perizonius, Jakob – original name Jakob Voorbroek, a Dutch classical scholar (1651–1715)

Pernicka, Ernst – an Austrian chemist, specialized in archaeometry

Pernier, Luigi – an Italian archaeologist and academic (1874–1937), now best known for his discovery of the Phaistos Disc

Persian Empire – imperial dynasties centered in Persia (Iran) starting in 550 BCE

Petra – a historical and archaeological city in southern Jordan, famous for its rock-cut architecture

Petras – Minoan site in northeastern Crete

Phaistos – Minoan palace on Crete

Phaistos Disc – circular clay disc of about 15 cm in diameter with a spiral arrangement of characters, retrieved from the palace of Phaistos on Crete

Philhellenism – intellectual movement influenced by German new humanism that evolved in the 1820s in Europe and enthusiastically embraced all things Greek

Philistines – Near Eastern people mentioned in the Bible that, most likely coming from the Aegean, had settled in the coastal areas of Palestine in the 12th cent. BCE

Philoxenus – Greek poet (435–380 BCE)

Phocaea – an ancient Ionian Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia, northwest of modern Izmir; said to have been attacked by Greek forces during the Trojan War

Phoenicians – ancient people who had lived mainly in Phoenicia in the area of present-day Lebanon and Syria on the Mediterranean coast

Phrygia – ancient name of a region in western central Asia Minor; named after the Phrygians, who had immigrated from the Troad and Thrace in the 12th cent. BCE

Pirinkar – winged deity in the procession of gods at Yazılıkaya, the Hittite rock sanctuary near Hattuša

Pitasa – petty state in western Asia Minor during Hittite times; located between Karkiša (Caria) in the west and the Hittite core realm in the east

Piteya – ancient city near the eastern entrance to the Dardanelles, said to have been destroyed by Greek forces during the Trojan War

Pittacus of Mytilene – an ancient military general (640–568 BCE) and one of the seven sages of Greece

Piyama-Radu – name of a man from Arzawa, mentioned in the so-called Tawagalawa letter to the king of Ahhiyawa; led a war against western vassals of the Hittites in the middle of the 13th cent. BCE

Plato – Greek philosopher (427–347)

Pliny – actually Gaius Plinius Secundus; better known as Pliny the elder (23–79); Roman writer, author of a natural history in 37 books

Plutarch – Greek writer (46–120)

Porsuk – river in western Asia Minor, drains into Sakarya River (the ancient Sangarius) at Gordium

Port of Nestor – artificial port basin near the Palace of Nestor at Pylos; discovered during the 1990s and dating to the 13th cent. BCE

Poseidon – in Greek mythology god of the sea and brother of Zeus

Prehistory – research branch of archaeology, deals with the history of humankind from the emergence of the first stone tools to the advent of written documents

Priam – Greek mythological figure, king of Troy during the time of the Trojan War

Priam’s Treasure – extensive depot find from the 3rd mill. BCE, discovered and wrongly attributed to king Priam by Heinrich Schliemann

Proetus – a mythical king of Argos and Tiryns; according to Strabo, he ordered the construction of the Cyclopean walls through the aid of engineers from Lycia

Prusa – ancient name of the present-day city of Bursa in northwestern Turkey

Psammetichus, Psammetichos – the name of three Egyptian pharaohs of the 26th Saite Dynasty

Ptolemaeus Chennus – Greek writer (1st cent. CE)

Pulak, Cemal – professor of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University, co-excavator of the shipwreck of Uluburun

Pylos – Late Bronze Age Palace of Nestor in the southwest of the Peloponnese; also name of a modern town in the vicinity

Pyrgos – town in the southwest of the Messara plain on Crete

Pythagoras of Samos – an Ionian Greek philosopher and mathematician (ca. 570–495 BCE)

Quintus Smyrnaeus – ancient Greek poet (probably 3rd cent. CE); author of Posthomerica, an epos in which he drew upon the archaic stories of the Epic Cycle

Ramesses I – Egyptian pharaoh and founder of the 19th dynasty (reigned 1292–1290 BCE)

Ramesses II – Egyptian pharaoh of the 19th dynasty (reigned 1279–1213 BCE)

Ramesses III – Egyptian pharaoh of the 20th dynasty (reigned 1182–1151 BCE)

Retjenu – ancient Egyptian name for Canaan

Rhodes – Greek island off the southwestern coast of Asia Minor

Rhytion – city near Pyrgos, Crete, in the southwest of the Messara plain

Roman Empire – territories that had been dominated by Rome between the 8th cent. BCE and the 7th cent. CE

Romanou – Greek village on the southwest Peloponnese near the silted up Port of Nestor

Roosevelt, Christopher H. – U.S. archaeologist, professor at Boston University and specialist in the archaeology of western Anatolia

Sadyattes – Lydian king (624–619 BCE)

Saint Jerome – also known as Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus, Roman church father, saint, scholar and theologian (347–420)

Saïs – Greek name of an ancient Egyptian town in the western Nile Delta; site of an important battle between Egypt and the Sea Peoples in 1208 BCE, capital during the reign of the 26th dynasty

Sakarya – the ancient Sangarius; third longest river in Turkey, runs through ancient Phrygia

Salian dance / Salic dance – traditional armed warrior dance and horse dance figure still practiced today

Samothrace – Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea near the Dardanelles

Sanctuary of Trajan – temple at the highest point of the acropolis of Pergamon

Santorini – archipelago in the south of the Cyclades, centered around the main island of Thera

Sappho – Greek lyric poetess (late 7th cent. BCE)

Sardis – capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia in the west of Asia Minor

Şarhöyük-Dorylaion – ancient settlement in Asia Minor, near the modern city of Eskişehir

Scamander – river that originates in the Ida Mountains and crosses the Trojan plain (also called Skamandros or Karamenderes); according to Homer, the gods originally called the river Xanthos

Scepsis – an ancient settlement in the Troad, said to have been destroyed by Greek forces during the Trojan War

Schliemann, Heinrich – German businessman and archaeologist, conducted large-scale excavations at Hisarlık, where he discovered the ruins of Ilion, the royal citadel of Troy

Scyros – name of a place in Asia Minor that was attacked by Greek forces during the Trojan War; also name of an island in the Aegean

Sea Peoples – confederation of tribes who attacked Egypt in the late 13th and early 12th cent. BCE

Šeha (also Šeha River Land) – Hittite name for a state west of Central Anatolia

Seneca – Roman poet and writer (4 BCE – 65 CE)

Sesdos – ancient settlement on the north coast of the Dardanelles, said to have been attacked by Greek forces during the Trojan War

Seti I – Egyptian pharaoh of the 19th dynasty (reigned 1290–1279 BCE)

Seti II – Egyptian pharaoh of the 19th dynasty

Shasu – Egyptian name for semi-nomadic people who lived in Syria and Palestine

Sherden – one of the Sea Peoples’ tribes

Sidon – archaeological site and modern town in Lebanon

Sigeion – port city during the 4th cent. BCE, located west of Illion

Simoeis, Simois – please see Dümrek

Simonides – actually Simonides von Ceos; Greek lyric poet (556–467 BCE)

Siptah – Egyptian pharaoh of the 19th dynasty

Skamma Andros – please see Scamander

Smyrna – ancient Greek city on the Aegean coast of Anatolia, known today as Izmir

Socrates – Greek philosopher and Plato’s teacher (469–399 BCE)

Solon – Greek statesman und poet (ca. 640–560 BCE)

Sophocles – Greek tragedian (496–406 BCE)

Source convergence – the process of obtaining knowledge by combining different sources, e. g. documents and the results of natural scientific investigations

Source criticism – in history, the process of evaluating an information source

Sphinx – in the arts, mythological figure with the body of a lion and the head of a man

Spratt, Thomas – English vice admiral and geologist (1811–1888)

Stesichorus – Greek lyric poet (630–555 BCE)

Strabo, Strabon – antique Greek historian and geographer (ca. 63 BCE – 23 CE)

Stratigraphy – the investigation of layer sequences in archaeology and geology

Suppiluliuma II – last Hittite emperor (reigned 1205–1192 BCE)

Sycionians – people of an ancient Greek city state situated in the northern Peloponnese

Syria – area between Euphrates and Mediterranean Sea south of the mountains of Anatolia

Tafur, Pedro – Spanish traveler, historian and writer, visited Troy in the fall of 1437

Tanaja – Egyptian name for Mycenaean Greece

Tantalos – according to John Malalas, the emperor of the land of the Mycenaeans

Tarhundaradu – king of Arzawa who corresponded with Pharaoh Amenhotep III

Tarhuntašša – undiscovered city in the south of Central Anatolia, after the Battle of Kadesh (1275 BCE) it had temporarily become the capital of the Hittite Empire

TAVO – Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients, a focal point of research of the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 1969 to 1993

Taylor, Thomas – an English translator and Neoplatonist (1758–1835), the first to translate into English the complete works of Plato

Tel Haror – Bronze Age archaeological site in the Negev Desert

Telamon – Greek mythological figure, king of Salamis and participant in the first Greek attack on Troy

Telemachus – Greek mythological figure, son of Odysseus

Tell – settlement mound created through repeated human settlement (Turkish: höyük)

Tell Deir Alla – settlement mound in present-day Jordan

Tell el-Fara – settlement mount in the Nile Delta

Tenedos – island off the coast of the Troad (today the Turkish island of Bozcaada)

Teucer, Teucrians – term commonly used for the people of Troy after 1200 BCE

Thalassocracy – state or group of states that bases its power on maritime trade and has a fleet at its disposal

Thales – a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, mathematician and astronomer (ca. 624–546 BCE) from Miletus in Asia Minor

Thebes – ancient and modern city in central Greece

Thebes – Greek name for the former capital of Egypt during the New Kingdom; present-day Luxor

Thebes – settlement most likely in the Gulf of Edremit, said to have been destroyed in the Trojan War

Theoclymenus – Greek mythological figure

Thera (Santorini) – volcanic island in the Aegean Sea; an outbreak, probably in spring of 1628 BCE, destroyed and buried the settlement of Akrotiri

Theseus – Greek mythological hero, king of the Mycenaean kingdom of Thessaly

Thessaly – geographic region and Mycenaean kingdom in northern Greece

Tholos tomb – a burial structure characterized by its false dome used in in several cultures in the Mediterranean and west Asia

Thrace – region on the European side of the Dardanelles

Thucydides – Greek historian (460–400 BCE)

Tigris – the eastern of the two rivers that define Mesopotamia, flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq and empties into the Persian Gulf

Timaeus – title of a dialogue by the Greek philosopher Plato

Timaeus from Tauromenium – ancient Greek historian (345–250 BCE)

Tiryns – Bronze Age archaeological site and citadel, located in the Argolid, Greece

Tjeker – one of the Sea Peoples; please also see Teucer

Tragliatella – Italian town where an Etruscan wine jug, engraved with a labyrinth and the name “Truia” (Troy), was found

Troad, Troas – ancient name of the landscape around Troy southeast of the Dardanelles, separated from the rest of Anatolia by a mountain range

Trojan War – term for a fatal early-historical conflict between the united Greeks and a coalition of western Anatolian states in Greek mythology and ancient texts

Tros – king of Troy in Greek mythology

Troy – location in Greek mythology; since Heinrich Schliemann, Troy has been generally equated with the Bronze Age archaeological site on hill Hisarlık in the northwest of Asia Minor

Troy dance – ceremonial dance performed in early Italy when a city was founded, specifically before the city walls were to be erected

Troy debate – controversy among German prehistorians with respect to the exploration and significance of Troy

Tudhaliya IV – Hittite emperor (reigned 1236–1215 BCE)

Tumulus – grave mound or burial mound

Twosret – female Egyptian pharaoh of the 19th dynasty (reigned 1193–1185 BCE)

Tyana – an ancient city in Central Anatolia, capital of a Luwian-speaking Neo-Hittite kingdom in the 1st mill. BCE

Tyre – important Phoenician city on a small island off the coast of present-day Lebanon

Tyrrhenians – a people of northwestern Asia Minor that were closely related to the Etruscans, mentioned by ancient Greek historians

Ugarit – ancient trading hub, located at the Mediterranean coast on present-day Syrian territory, capital of a state by the same name

Uluburun shipwreck – sunken sailing ship from the Late Bronze Age, found in 1982 near Cape Uluburun off the southwestern coast of Turkey

Upper Land – Hittite term for the central realm around Hattuša

Uwas – Cretan petty king

Ventris, Michael – English architect (1922–1956) who in 1952 deciphered the Linear B script

Villanovan culture – earliest Iron Age culture of northern Italy that had its center in present-day Tuscany

Virgil – Roman poet (70–19 BCE)

Walma – Hittite name for a state west of Central Anatolia

Wiluša – late Bronze Age state in western Asia Minor, mentioned in Hittite texts; possibly Troy

Winckler, Hugo – a German archaeologist and historian (1863–1913) who uncovered the capital of the Hittite empire at Boğazkale, Turkey

Wolf, Friedrich August – a German philologist (1759–1824)

Woudhuizen, Frederik Christiaan – a Dutch linguist, produced substantial publications on Luwian and the ethnicity and language of the Sea Peoples

Xanthos – please see Scamander

Xenophanes – Xenophanes of Colophon, a Greek philosopher, theologian and poet (ca. 570–475 BCE)

Xenophon – Greek writer (430–354 BCE)

Zeleia – the name of an ancient town or city in the Troad; an ally of the Trojans