Heading to the Center of the Earth
When you learn about the anthropological history of mankind (whether through a course or a personalized DNA sample intended to give you some sense of whence you evolved), you quickly learn that the best anthropologists can determine, we all began in East Africa somewhere as part of Lucy’s clan. From there our ancestors headed north across what we now call the Red Sea into the Fertile Crescent of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now mostly Iraq on up through Jordan, Israel and Syria. From there, whole branches of the evolutionary tree spread up into the Caucasus Mountains between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea and through Iran to the Eastern shores of the Caspian into what we affectionately know as “the Stans”. These are the steppes of Central Asia and are where humankind spent many generations figuring out what it was and where it should go. When you see the migratory maps, the sense now is that it is from these Central Asian areas that mankind spread to all the ordinal points of the compass. I’m not sure that can ever be definitively proven, but it seems to make sense with all the evidence uncovered to date. Perhaps the best evidence is quickly building with all the genetic DNA tracing that is now possible. The maps of mankind are well-hidden but irrefutably evident in the chromosomes of the human genome.
I am fascinated by pre-history and it all pretty much takes place in this part of the world. Since so much of current world dominance is driven by the Caucasian tribes that sprang from those mountains north of the Fertile Crescent and found their way to Europe through modern-day Turkey and then across the Dardanelles or the Bosphorus, it is logical to imagine that Turkey was and perhaps still is the gateway between East and West and therefore can be considered the center of the known world.
The history of Istanbul is fascinating. It was initially the intersection between Anatolia (Persia to most of us) and Thrace (norther Greece as we know it). Even today people refer to the parts of Istanbul as being either the European or Asian sides. But in addition, the entire western coastline of Turkey that borders on the Aegean was for many years more like and more a part of Greece than a part of the Asia side of the country. In ancient days, somewhere in between the Thracian Tribes, the hordes from Lagos and Persia descended on Turkey. In addition to these and other Arabs, the city took the name of its most impactful culture and thus became known as Byzantium. It was known as such when Alexander the Great, the young Macedonian King who had a penchant for conquest, took it as his capital.
Even when the Legions of Rome, headed by Septimus Sevinus, overtook the city and made it the seat of the Eastern Roman Empire, they called it the Byzantine Empire despite honoring their Emperor by declaring the city as Constantinople. They rebuilt the city around their own Roman image by building it on seven hills. The city of 500,000 was the largest city in the world and was a wonder for the country folk that found their way to it one way or another. This lasted more or less a Millennium. Along the way, the schizophrenia of East and West was matched by the religious schizophrenia of the polyglot of eastern and western sects that came and went. The Fourth Crusade cohort stayed in the city longer than most invaders and certainly longer than they had planned, turning buildings like The Hagia Sofia from mosque to church, only to see it revert to a mosque again before the city fathers finally decided it would be easier to just make it a non-sectarian museum. I find the existence of Viking Runes (the closest thing they had to a written language) carved into the mezzanine railings at the Hagia Sofia clear evidence that sooner or later all marauders or conquerors lead to Byzantium.
The history of Turkey for the last sesquicentennial is divided into the Ottoman Empire, begun by Sultan Mehmet and based in Istanbul, and then the modern era led by Ataturk as exemplified by the new capital city of Ankara. He solidified the Muslim faith and culture, establishing Turkey as an important and permanent bridge between east and west, but with a decidedly Arabian flair to it. While to most of us from the west we think of places like Troy, Ephesus and Gallipoli as holding the history of Turkey. I suspect the true battleground is found in the arid and mountainous land to the east and southeast. He’s are the places where big battles were inevitably fought over and over again. Tribal man has a penchant for spilling the blood of whomever opposes his wishes. Is it man’s baser instinct that gives him this bloodlust or is it his cerebral ability to imagine a future of abundance and prosperity if only he can get past one more competing tribe? Did early man wage war for the sport of it or did he only lash out at the prospect of unmet needs or in defense of what little he had? Whichever it was, it was easiest to battle those that were most different, and nowhere were the differences more well-defined than in this crossroads of the ancient world. Even today, the harshest and most prolonged conflicts seem to lodge in this dusty mountainous region from the middle of Turkey down to the subcontinent of India Andi eastward to the Hindu Kush.
Perhaps life is so harsh there as to harden the hearts of men. They say the fiercest fighters in the world are the Gurkhas, the Kurds, the Afghans, the Kashmiri and, of course, the Turks. These warriors have proven the strength of their metal over and over again across four millennia. They regularly outlast far superior numbers and technology by sheer tenacity. From the days of the vast British Empire, superpowers have simultaneously coveted the strategic value of the region and yet feared to engage fully. Attrition is a way of life there and smart leaders steer clear.
The closest we will get to such a place is in Cappadocia, at the end of our journey. We will both see and inhabit the caves used by early man and warriors alike. There we will feel what it’s like to be both far from the madding crowd and yet smack in the center of the earth.