 Turkey
Turkey has since the beginnings of history been one of the great meeting points of east and west. The mixture of peoples who settled there were part of the Hittite empire in the 2nd millennium BC, and then disturbed by population movements on its fall. In the course of the 7th and 6th centuries BC it became part of the Persian empire, and Persian influence established deep roots among the population. Greeks colonised the Aegean and Black Sea coasts, and the Aegean coast especially was for Greeks as much part of the Greek world as Greece itself. Jewish settlers were sent to Asia Minor by the Seleucid king Antiochus III in the early 2nd century BC, and then Rome gradually came to control the land. It became highly Romanised and highly Christianised under the Byzantine empire, before the arrival of Islam and the establishment of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum at the end of the 11th century AD and of the Ottoman empire at the end of the 13th. With the debate about Turkey's possible entry to the EU, it seems a particularly opportune time to examine the roots of Turkish identity. Claims that it is alien to, and does not share, Europe's culture is based on the assumption that its recent Islamic past cancels out millennia of different identities that saw it centrally located as an integral part of the Mediterranean world. (Professor McGing, Dr Dodge)
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