Tag: Chalcolithic
The Chalcolithic — the Copper Age, roughly 5,000 to 3,000 BCE — is when humans first learned to smelt metal and quietly rewrote the future of the species. Anatolia, with its ore-rich mountains and fertile plateaus, was one of the great cradles of that transformation. This archive collects the prehistoric and proto-historic sites in Turkey where the world’s oldest stories are still being unearthed.
Stand on the mound of Arslantepe, the UNESCO-listed Chalcolithic palace near Malatya that produced the earliest known swords in human history. Trace what came after at Phrygia, the Iron Age kingdom of Midas, and peer even further back at Yarımburgaz Cave, the 400,000-year-old shelter on Istanbul’s western edge that proves people were calling this land home long before metal, language, or cities.
Discover how prehistoric water and geography forged Istanbul’s fate, browse our 17 unforgettable places to visit in Turkey, and — if you want to read the stones with an expert — walk them with our archaeologist-eyed Istanbul guide Duygu Sınırtaş.
