Description : İskilip is a district of Çorum Province, Turkey, on the left bank of the River Kızılırmak, located at 56 km from the city of Çorum, 100 miles (160 km) northeast of Ankara and 60 miles (100 km) southeast of Kastamonu People have been attracted to the saline springs of İskilip since the earliest times, and the town stands on a route through the mountains to the Black Sea coast. Therefore, this is one of the longest-settled areas of Anatolia; copper was smelted here in ancient times, when the plain was settled by the Hittite and Hatti civilizations (from 3000 BC). Rock carvings on the hill of Yivlik are said to date to the Hittite period. The Hattic city was then possessed by Paphlagonian kings (from 900-700 BC), was mentioned in the Iliad, and was visited by Herodotus. Then came the Galatians and the kings of Pontus, but these were soon displaced by a much stronger civilization. For the ancient Romans, who paid their soldiers in salt, the area had great importance. The Romans and, subsequently, the Byzantines settled here for a thousand years, making İskilip one of their key strongholds on the Kızılırmak. Byzantine rule of Anatolia ended in 1071 following the Byzantines' defeat by the Seljuk Turks at the battle of Malazgirt, and İskilip was soon settled (1074) by the Danishmend Turks, who brought Islam to the region. Centuries of fighting ensued between further Turkish clans and, from the 13th century, waves of Mongol and Tatar invaders. In 1390, with the aid of Mongolian armies, the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I moved against the Turkish lords who, by now, were in control of this corner of Anatolia. After severe fighting in which an Ottoman prince was killed and the castles of Ankara, Kalecik, and others were besieged, Bayezid (the Thunderbolt) prevailed and the area was brought under Ottoman control. But the castle of İskilip had been seriously damaged, and most of the population dispersed during the fighting, never to return, perhaps wisely, as the area, in 1402, was the scene of even more terrible warfare between Bayezid's Ottomans and the Tatars of Timur. Following the Ottoman Interregnum, rule was restored by Bayezid's son Mehmed I, but İskilip's misfortune persisted, with destruction returning in 1509 in a large earthquake known as the little Armageddon.
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