History of Istanbul
Neolithic artifacts, uncovered by archeologists at the beginning of the 21st century, indicate that Istanbul's historic peninsula was settled as far back as the 6th millennium BCE.[1] That early settlement, important in the spread of the Neolithic Revolution from the Near East to Europe, lasted for almost a millennium before being inundated by rising water levels.[2][3][4] The first human settlement on the Asian side, the Fikirtepe mound, is from the Copper Age period, with artifacts dating from 5500 to 3500 BCE.[5] In the European side, near the point of the peninsula (Sarayburnu) there was a settlement during the early 1st millennium BCE. Modern authors have linked it to the possible Thracian toponym Lygos,[6] mentioned by Pliny the Elder as an earlier name for the site of Byzantium.[7]
"Lygos" redirects here. For other uses of the term, see Lygos (disambiguation).
There is evidence suggesting there were settlements around the region dating as far back as 6700 BC, and it is hard to define if there was any settlement on exact spot at city proper established, but earliest records about city proper begins around 660 BC[a][13][14] when Greek settlers from Megara colonized the area and established Byzantium on the European side of the Bosphorus. It fell to the Roman Republic in 196 BC,[15] and was known as Byzantium in Latin until 330, when the city, soon renamed as Constantinople, became the new capital of the Roman Empire. During the reign of Justinian I, the city rose to be the largest in the western world, with a population peaking at close to half a million people.[16] Constantinople functioned as the capital of the Byzantine Empire, which effectively ended with the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Constantinople then became the capital of the Ottoman Turks.
The population had declined during the medieval period, but as the Ottoman Empire approached its historical peak, the city grew to a population of close to 700,000 in the 16th century,[17] once again ranking among the world's most popular cities. With the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, that country's capital moved from Constantinople to Ankara (previously Angora).
Lygos[edit]
The first name of the city was Lygos[22] according to Pliny the Elder in his historical accounts and it was possibly founded by Thracian tribes along with the neighboring settlement of Semystra.[23] Only a few walls and substructures belonging to Lygos have survived to date, near the Seraglio Point,[6] where the Topkapı Palace now stands. Lygos and Semystra were the only settlements on the European side of Istanbul. On the Asian side there was a Phoenician colony.
