Noam Chomsky - Mark Thomas TV - Midas Revealed TV - Mankind: The Story of All of Us TV - The Cost of a Coke Revisited TV - Robert Bartlett TV - Ancient Aliens TV - Lost Worlds of the Bible: The Hittites TV - Tessa Dunlop - Thomas Zimmerman - Richard Miles TV - Troy: The Truth Behind the Legend TV - Robin Lane Fox TV - Lost Cities of the Ancients: The Dark Side of Hattusha TV - Decoding the Past: The Templar Code & The Koran TV - Niall Ferguson TV - Horizon TV - Lost Civilisation TV - Empires: Islam TV - Diarmaid MacCulloch TV - Rageh Omaar TV - Simon Sebag Montefiore TV - Eliot Engel - Joe Wurzelbacher - Misha Glenny - Simon Reeve TV - Ataturk: Founder of Modern Turkey 1999 - Stacey Dooley TV - Ancient Mysteries: The Garden of Eden TV - Scam City TV - Carroll Quigley - Michael Scott TV - Our World TV - David Olusoga TV - Janina Ramirez TV - The First World War TV - Bettany Hughes TV - This World: Turkey: Empire of Erdogan TV - This World: Turkey: Empire of Erdogan TV - Ancient Apocalypse TV -
Turkey must find its place if, of course, it can heal its internal sores, and none is more malignant than the perennial Kurdish issue. Noam Chomsky
By very conservative estimates, Turkish repression of Kurds in the 1990s falls in the category of Kosovo. It peaked in the early 1990s; one index is the flight of more than a million Kurds from the countryside to the unofficial Kurdish capital, Diyarbakir, from 1990 to 1994, as the Turkish army was devastating the countryside. Noam Chomsky
Also forgotten was Turkey’s conquest of northern Cyprus, with thousands of casualties and hundreds of thousands of refugees after an orgy of killing, torture, rape and pillage to extirpate the last remnants of Greek culture back to classical antiquity; George Bush praised Turkey for serving ‘as a protector of peace’ as it joined those who ‘stand up for civilized values around the world.’ Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy
Turkish president Turgut Ozal ... made use of the opportunity offered by the Gulf crisis to step up attacks on his own Kurdish population, confident that the US media would judiciously refrain from reporting the bombings of Kurdish villages and the plight of hundreds of thousands of refugees trying to survive the cold winter in the mountains without aid or provisions. ibid.
Yusufeli Dam: Ilisu dam was a dam that was going to be built in Turkey by Balfour Beaty amongst others, and they were going to get £200,000,0000 of taxpayers’ money, via the Export Credit Guarantee Department … It would displace up to 78,000 Kurds … Mark Thomas Comedy Product s6e4, Channel 4 2002
We find out about another dam that is to built by a British company using our money … Amec, the construction company, are after £68,000,000 to help build the Yusufeli Dam in Turkey in the north-east. And that dam will destroy the natural environment there … They will be made homeless … ibid.
His name is a by-word for foolish greed and fantastic wealth. According to legend he yearned to be the richest man in the ancient world. And it brought him only misery. But was King Midas the man who turned everything he touched to gold just a myth? Midas Revealed
In 1957 a spectacular discovery was made in the desolate plains of central Turkey ... Buried deep in a huge mound was the skeleton of what seemed to be a powerful ruler. The legend began to be explored. And now an astonishing picture is emerging of a long-lost and fabulously rich civilisation of brilliantly successful kings. ibid.
Constantinople is under siege by the Ottoman Turks. Mankind: The Story of All of Us VII: New World, History 2012
Christian Constantinople becomes Islamic Istanbul. ibid.
Even in Turkey they [Coca-Cola] have denied workers their rights to unionise. The Cost of a Coke Revisited, 2010
Bohemond established a new Norman state – the principality of Antioch. Robert Bartlett, The Normans III: Normans of the South, BBC 2010
A temple of the dead in the Yucatan, an underground city in Turkey, and a South American cave said to contain a treasure from beyond the stars: for centuries people have told tales of caves and tunnels deep inside the earth: subterranean passageways that lead to lands of gods and monsters. Could there be a surprising truth behind these legends? Ancient Aliens s2e4: Underground Aliens, Aliens 2010
According to most archaeologists and scholars Derainkuyu [Turkey] was built around 800 B.C. by the Phrygians ... Others believe it was built by the Hittites, a warrior people mentioned in the Bible who flourished hundreds of years earlier. But could the underground city be even older? ibid.
Sanliurfa in south-eastern Turkey: there in 1994 on a dusty hilltop a local shepherd noticed the tip of a stone sticking out of his field. He began to dig eventually unearthing a nineteen-foot pillar ... Perhaps the most astonishing archaeological discovery in recent years. Ancient Aliens s2e8: Unexplained Structures
Curiously, after thirteen years of digging, archaeologists investigating the ancient site have failed to recover a single stone-cutting tool. Nor have they recovered agricultural implements. ibid.
The name of the Hittites has come down to us from the oldest stories in the Bible, where they appear as a ferocious tribe inhabiting the fringes of the Holy Land. Almost nothing more was known about them until the 19th century when explorers travelling the empty expanse of Central Turkey found a lost city ... This was Hattusa, the capital city of a forgotten empire, the construction of which was centuries ahead of its time. It was perched on a high plateau and surrounded by an impregnable wall ... A network of subterranean tunnels and an extensive temple complex ... a citadel ... Why did such an advanced and mighty empire suddenly vanish? Lost Worlds of the Bible: The Hittites, History 2007
The Hittites had an evolving legal system that was more concerned with practicality than punishment. The most significant aspect of Hittite law was treaty making ... Shrewd diplomacy was their best secret weapon. ibid.
Archaeologists have found no evidence the walls were breached by a foreign enemy ... The Hittites turned on each other ... Rival factions tore the empire apart ... The entire region was plunged into chaos ... Remnants of Hittite civilisation persisted. ibid.
For three thousand years, all we had on the Hittites was a few references in the Bible. That was it. Tessa Dunlop, Hittite researcher
For the first time in old world history, we have a major battle that was fought between nations, not only rivalling chiefdoms or rivalling cities, but the Hittites on the one side, and the Egyptians on the other. Thomas Zimmerman
By the middle of the second millennium B.C. there was a new game to play – Diplomacy. The Hittite Kings of Anatolia were the pioneers of this new form of war by other means. Richard Miles, Ancient Worlds: Come Together, BBC 2010
The Hittites: This powerful people ruled large areas of Anatolia and Syria in the second millennium B.C. They were on equal footing with the great Egyptian empire ... This was probably the first east/west conflict in world history. Troy: The Truth Behind the Legend, History 2009
Mount Cassius was a holy mountain for the Hittites. The Hittites’ old empire had fallen around 1,200 B.C. four centuries before Nubians settled here. At its peak it had ruled over a vast swathe of land. Robin Lane Fox, Greek Myths: Tales of Travelling Heroes, BBC 2010
The stories we know from other Hittite texts about the many battles and fights of the Hittite gods for control in Heaven. Most remarkably, these Hittite myths share many details with the Greek myths of how their ruling gods came to power. The myths are so similar. Did the Hittites once influence the Greeks? ibid.
One of the stories we have of the Hittite snake monster is that at first it defeated the storm god Tarhunta then stole his eyes and heart, which he hid in a cave. In later Greek myth, Zeus too is defeated at first by the snaky monster – in Greek Typhon. On Mount Cassius itself we’re told. ibid.
Babylon 1595 B.C. A mysterious new army has struck Babylon without warning. Spreading terror throughout the city. With ruthless efficiency these dark warriors of Hattusa would go on to destroy anything in their way. Their mission: to become the greatest empire the world had ever seen. Yet once they had succeeded this ruthless army and the vast empire they had created simply disappeared as mysteriously as they had emerged. Lost Cities of the Ancients: The Dark Side of Hattusa, BBC 2012
Fragments from this lost world began to emerge. ibid.
A fourth great empire of which there was no trace. ibid.
Only the kings of the three great empires, of Egypt, Syria and Babylon were referred to as ‘great king’ ... The peace treaty dated 1259 B.C. was proof there had indeed been a missing fourth empire. ibid.
Hundreds of miles from the sea and perched up on the barren hills where the climate is harsh. ibid.
Every detail of their city was deliberately planned ... They built into the most extreme places. ibid.
The Hittites then turned every part of Hattusa into an impregnable fortress. They were clearly obsessed with their own security. ibid.
An inner wall even thicker than the first. ibid.
Hattusa was home to more than fifty thousand people. ibid.
They devised an ingenious way to provide themselves with continuous fresh water even if they were under siege. ibid.
This strange remote place. ibid.
They designed monuments to be the envy of the world. ibid.