ASIANOVERLAND.NET SYDNEY TO LONDON  DAY 302/141/53: ISKENDERUM TO ADANA,  TURKIYE

Adana is one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements of the world, with a name unchanged for at least four thousand years,

Adana lies in the heart of Cilicia, which was one of the most important regions of the classical world. Adana is the oldest city of Cilicia, with a history going back to around 6000 BC.

The first people who lived in Adana and the surrounding area were the Luwians, who controlled the Mediterranean coast of Anatolia from 3000 BC to 1600 BC before the Hittites took over the region. 

The Assyrians took control of Adana and most of Cilicia before their collapse in 612 BC.

Cilicians founded the Kingdom of Cilicia in 612 BC and were independent until the invasion of the Achaemenid Empire in 549 BC, when they became an autonomous satrapy of the Achaemenids until 401 BC.

Alexander the Great entered Cilicia through the Cilician Gates in 333 BC. After defeating the Persians at the Battle of Issus, he installed his own satrap, Balacrus, to oversee the region's administration. His death in 323 BC marked the beginning of the Hellenistic era, as Greek replaced Luwian as the language of the region.

The Seleucid Empire took control of the region in 312 BC. Adanan locals adopted a Greek name - Antioch on Sarus - for the city to demonstrate their loyalty to the Seleucid dynasty.

Adana was a market town at the Cilicia plain and one of the gateways from Europe to the Middle East.

The South coast of Turkey is full of amazing Crusader Castles along the beaches and in the Mediterranean Sea.

Adana turned into a powerhouse of Cilicia with the Turkic takeover in 1359. It remained as the capital of the Ramadanid Emirate until 1608, and then the regional centre for the Ottoman Empire.

Traditionally a town populated by Armenians and Turks, an influx of Assyrians, Greeks, Circassians, Jews and Alawites during the Ottoman Empire, made Adana one of the most diverse cities of the Ottoman Empire. Economic, social and cultural growth were halted by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Adana massacre and the 1921 Cilicia evacuation, which devastated Adana in the early 20th century.

Our overland trip book records - 

“9 November, 1980

“THE BUS CALLED THE MIGHTY GRUNT”

There is a bus from New Orleans

They call it the mighty Grunt

And its been the ruin of many a poor boy

Oh God, I know, I’m one

 

Our driver, he was a drinker

He drove that mighty bus

It was into his most tender care That God entrusted us.

 

Our courier, he was a lawyer

Well known at the bar

He was quite good at history

But at other things better by far

 

Well mother, please tell your children

Not to do, what I have done

To spend their lives in sin and misery

In the bus called the mighty Grunt”

↑ Day 301 ↓ Day 303