Misplaced Pages

#535464

89-738: Around the c.  660s BCE , the Treres migrated across the Thracian Bosporus and invaded Anatolia from the north-west, after which they allied with the Cimmerians , who were a nomadic Iranic people originating in the Eurasian Steppe who had themselves invaded Anatolia from the east in the middle of the preceding 8th century BCE. From around the c.  650s BCE , the Treres were nomadising in Anatolia along with

178-715: A NATO SACLANT Undersea Research project using jointly the NATO RV Alliance , and the Turkish Navy survey ship Çubuklu . In 2002, a survey carried out on board the Ifremer RV Le Suroit for BlaSON project (Lericolais, et al., 2003 ) completed the multibeam mapping of this underwater channel fan-delta. A complete map was published in 2009 using these previous results together with high quality mapping obtained in 2006 (by researchers at Memorial University of Newfoundland who were project partners in

267-532: A cable-stayed bridge cross the Bosporus. The first of these, the 1,074 m (3,524 ft) long 15th July Martyrs Bridge was completed in 1973 when it was called the Bosporus Bridge. The second, named Fatih Sultan Mehmet (Bosporus II) Bridge , is 1,090 m (3,576 ft) long, and was completed in 1988 about 5 km (3 mi) north of the first bridge. The first Bosporus Bridge forms part of

356-711: A lengthy campaign during which the Ottomans constructed fortifications on each side of the strait, the Anadoluhisarı (Anatolian Castle, 1393) and the Rumelihisarı (European Castle, 1451), in preparation for not only the primary battle but to assert long-term control over the Bosporus and surrounding waterways. The final 53-day campaign, which resulted in Ottoman victory, constituted an important turn in world history. Together with Christopher Columbus 's first voyage to

445-781: A nominal extension of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Under this arrangement, the power of the Scythians in West Asia heavily depended on their cooperation with the Assyrian Empire; henceforth, the Scythians remained allies of the Assyrian Empire. Around this time, the Urartian king Rusa II might also have enlisted Scythian troops to guard his western borderlands. The marital alliance between the Scythian king and

534-643: A number of conflicts in modern history, notably the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) , as well as of the attack of the Allied Powers on the Dardanelles during the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli in the course of World War I . In 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine the Bosporus' importance as a route by which grain reached the world was thrown into sharp profile. The strategic importance of

623-841: A threat against or a conquest of the western possessions of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in Syria , and these Cimmerian aggressions worried Ashurbanipal about the security of his empire's north-west border. By 657 BCE the Assyrian divinatory records were calling the Cimmerian king Tugdammi by the title of šar-kiššati (" King of the Universe "), which could normally belong only to the Neo-Assyrian King: thus, Tugdammi's successes against Assyria meant that he had become recognised in ancient West Asia as equally powerful as Ashurbanipal, and

712-473: Is 16 000 m /s (fresh water at the surface) and the northbound flow is 11 000 m /s (salt water near the bottom). Dan Parsons and researchers at the University of Leeds School of Earth and Environment describe a Black Sea undersea river . The Golden Horn is an estuary off the main strait that historically acted as a moat to protect Constantinople from attack, as well as providing sheltered anchorage for

801-439: Is 700 m (0.38 nmi) between Kandilli Point and Aşiyan . The depth of the Bosporus varies from 13 to 110 m (43 to 361 ft) in midstream with an average of 65 m (213 ft). The deepest point is between Kandilli and Bebek , at 110 m (360 ft). The shallowest locations are off Kadıköy İnciburnu at 18 m (59 ft) and off Aşiyan Point at 13 m (43 ft). The southbound flow of water

890-648: Is a natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in Istanbul , Turkey . The Bosporus connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and forms one of the continental boundaries between Asia and Europe . It also divides Turkey by separating Asia minor from Thrace . It is the world's narrowest strait used for international navigation . Most of the shores of the Bosporus Strait, except for

979-663: Is the Latinised form of Maduēs ( Ancient Greek : Μαδυης ), which is itself the Ancient Greek form of an Old Iranic name. Iranologist had initially suggested that the original form of Madyes's name was Scythian *Madava , meaning “mead,” derived from a term for honey, *madu- . However, the Iranic sound /d/ had evolved into /δ/ in Proto-Scythian, and later evolved into /l/ in Scythian, due to which

SECTION 10

#1732771808536

1068-767: The Bosporus Water Tunnel , was constructed in 2012 to transfer water from the Melen Creek in Düzce Province (to the east of the Bosporus strait, in northwestern Anatolia ) to the European side of Istanbul, a distance of 185 km (115 mi). Madyes Madyes was a Scythian king who ruled during the period of the Scythian presence in West Asia in the 7th century BCE. Madyes

1157-631: The First World War , the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres demilitarised the Strait and made it an international territory under the control of the League of Nations . This was amended by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) , which restored the straits to Turkey but allowed all foreign warships and commercial shipping to traverse the straits freely. Turkey eventually rejected the terms of that treaty, and remilitarised

1246-783: The O1 Motorway , while the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge forms part of the Trans-European Motorway . The third and most recent bridge, the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge , is 2,164 m (7,100 ft) long and was completed in 2016. It is located near the northern end of the Bosporus, between the villages of Garipçe on the European side and Poyrazköy on the Asian side, as part of the " Northern Marmara Motorway ", integrated into

1335-471: The Urartians had sent tribute to the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 643 BCE, the Urartian king Sarduri III ( r.   c.  645  –  c.  625 BCE ), who had been a Neo-Assyrian vassal, was at this time also forced to accept the suzerainty of the Treres' Cimmerian allies. However, Mussi died before the planned attack on Neo-Assyrian Empire and his kingdom collapsed when its elite fled or

1424-571: The flood to 7500 BP or 5500 BC from fresh-salt water microflora. Driven out by the rapidly rising water, which must have been terrifying and inexplicable, people spread to all corners of the Western world carrying the story of a major flood. As the waters surged, they scoured a network of sea-floor channels less resistant to denser suspended solids in liquid, which remains a very active layer today. The first images of these submarine channels showing them to be of great size, were obtained in 1999 during

1513-488: The 19th century. Until the early 20th century most were only accessible by boat (known as caiques) along the Bosporus since there were no coast roads. Today the villages are no more than suburbs of Greater Istanbul but many retain the memory of their original village status in the suffix '- köy ( village' to their names. e.g. Ortaköy , Yeniköy , Arnavutköy , Çengelköy and Vaniköy. These villages often had distinct identities associated with agriculture: Arnavutköy, for example,

1602-692: The 8th and 7th centuries BCE, a significant movement of the nomads of the Eurasian steppe brought the Scythians into Southwest Asia. This movement started when another nomadic Iranic tribe closely related to the Scythians, either the Massagetae or the Issedones , migrated westwards, forcing the Early Scythians of the to the west across the Araxes river, following which the Scythians moved into

1691-776: The Americas in 1492, the 1453 conquest of Constantinople is commonly noted as among the events that brought an end to the Middle Ages and marked the transition to the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery . The event also marked the end of the Byzantines —the final remnants of the Roman Empire —and the transfer of the control of the Bosporus into Ottoman hands. The Ottomans then made Constantinople their new capital, and

1780-440: The Assyrian ruling dynasty, as well as the proximity of the Scythians with Mannai and Urartu , placed the Scythians under the strong influence of Assyrian culture. After Bartatua's death, Madyes succeeded him. When, following a period of Assyrian decline over the course of the 650s BCE, Esarhaddon's other son, Shamash-shum-ukin , who had succeeded him as the king of Babylon, revolted against his brother Ashurbanipal in 652 BCE,

1869-681: The Assyrians in 626 BCE under the leadership of Nabopolassar . The next year, in 625 BCE, Cyaxares , the son of Phraortes and his successor to the Median kingship, overthrew the Scythian yoke over the Medes by inviting the Scythian rulers to a banquet and then murdering them all, including Madyes, after getting them drunk. Madyes's relationship with the Scythian kings after him and the identity of his successor are both unknown, although shortly after his assassination, some time between 623 and 616 BCE,

SECTION 20

#1732771808536

1958-675: The Bosporus "Stenon" and used the following major toponyms in the area: The strategic significance of the Strait was one of the factors in the decision of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great to found his new capital, Constantinople , there in AD 330. This then became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire . On 29 May 1453, the then-emergent Ottoman Empire conquered the city of Constantinople following

2047-738: The Bosporus allows maritime connections from the Black Sea all the way to the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean via Gibraltar, and to the Indian Ocean through the Suez Canal , making it a crucial international waterway, in particular for the passage of goods coming from Russia . There is one very small island in the Bosporus just off Kuruçeşme. Now generally known as Galatasaray Island ( Galatasaray Adası), this

2136-580: The Bosporus dates back millennia. In the 5th century BC the Greek city-state of Athens , which depended on grain imports from the Black Sea ports of Scythia , maintained critical alliances with cities which controlled the straits, such as the Megarian colony of Byzantium . In an attempt to subdue the Scythian horsemen who roamed across the north of the Black Sea, the Persian King Darius I

2225-847: The Bosporus was also known as the "Strait of Constantinople", or the Thracian Bosporus to distinguish it from the Cimmerian Bosporus in Crimea . These are expressed in Herodotus 's Histories , 4.83; as Bosporus Thracius , Bosporus Thraciae , and Βόσπορος Θρᾴκιος ( Bósporos Thráikios ), respectively. Other names used by Herodotus to refer to the strait include Chalcedonian Bosporus ( Bosporus Chalcedoniae , Βόσπορος τῆς Χαλκηδονίης [ Bosporos tes Khalkedonies ], Herodotus 4.87), or Mysian Bosporus ( Bosporus Mysius ). The term eventually came to be used as

2314-756: The Caspian Steppe from where they displaced the Cimmerians . Under Scythian pressure, the Cimmerians migrated to the south along the coast of the Black Sea and reached Anatolia, and the Scythians in turn later expanded to the south, following the coast of the Caspian Sea and arrived in the steppes in the Northern Caucasus, from where they expanded into the region of present-day Azerbaijan , where they settled and turned eastern Transcaucasia into their centre of operations in West Asia until

2403-563: The Cimmerians and the Treres into invading the Greek city-states of the Troad , Aeolia and Ionia on the western coast of Anatolia, where they destroyed the city of Magnesia on the Meander as well as the Artemision of Ephesus . The city of Colophon joined Ephesus and Magnesia in resisting this invasion. The Cimmerians and Treres remained on the western coast of Anatolia inhabited by

2492-607: The Cimmerians into invading the Greek city-states of Ionia and Aeolis on the western coast of Anatolia. After this attack on Lydia and the Asian Greek cities, around 640 BCE the Cimmerians moved to Cilicia on the north-west border of the Neo-Assyrian empire, where, after Tugdammi faced a revolt against himself, he allied with Assyria and acknowledged Assyrian overlordship, and sent tribute to Ashurbanipal, to whom he swore an oath. Tugdammi soon broke this oath and attacked

2581-480: The Cimmerians so that they no longer constituted a threat again, following which the Scythians extended their domination to Central Anatolia. This final defeat of the Cimmerians was carried out by the joint forces of Madyes, whom Strabo credits with expelling the Treres and Cimmerians from Asia Minor, and of Sadyattes’s son, Ardys’s grandson, and Gyges's great-grandson, the king Alyattes of Lydia, whom Herodotus of Halicarnassus and Polyaenus claim finally defeated

2670-571: The Cimmerians so that they no longer constituted a threat. Another group of Treres lived in Thrace , although their relation with those who had invaded Anatolia is unclear: One section of the European Treres lived in north-west Thrace, more specifically in the northwestern borderlands of the Odrysian kingdom , where they occupied the region of Serdica to the north of mount Scombrus and

2759-500: The Cimmerians. In Polyaenus' account of the defeat of the Cimmerians, he claimed that Alyattes used "war dogs" to expel them from Asia Minor, with the term "war dogs" being a Greek folkloric reinterpretation of young Scythian warriors who, following the Indo-European passage rite of the kóryos , would ritually take on the role of wolf- or dog-warriors. Scythian power in West Asia thus reached its peak under Madyes, with

Treres - Misplaced Pages Continue

2848-576: The Cimmerians. In 644 BCE, the Treres under their king Kōbos ( Κωβος ), along with the Cimmerians under their king Lygdamis, and in alliance with the Lycians or Lycaonians , attacked the kingdom of Lydia : they defeated the Lydians and captured their capital city of Sardis except for its citadel, and the Lydian king Gyges was killed during this attack. After sacking Sardis, Lydgamis and Kōbos led

2937-444: The French Bosphore , the Spanish Bósforo , the Italian Bosforo and the Russian Босфор . The 12th-century Greek scholar John Tzetzes calls it Damaliten Bosporon (after Damalis ), but he also reports that in popular usage the strait was known as Prosphorion during his day, the name of the most ancient northern harbour of Constantinople . In English, the preferred spelling tends to be Bosphorus. Historically,

3026-507: The Great ( r.  522 BC – 486 BC ) crossed the Bosporus, then marched towards the River Danube . His army crossed the Bosporus using an enormous bridge made by connecting boats. This bridge essentially connected the farthest geographic tip of Asia to Europe, encompassing at least some 1,000 metres of open. Years later, Xerxes I would construct a similar boat bridge across the Dardanelles ( Hellespont ) strait (480 BC), during his invasion of Greece . The Byzantines called

3115-428: The Greeks for three years, from c.  644 to c.  641 BCE , where later Greek tradition claimed that Lygdamis had occupied Antandros and Priene , which forced a large number of the inhabitants of the coastal region called Batinētis to flee to the islands of the Aegean Sea. Sensing the exhaustion of Neo-Assyrian power following the suppression of a revolt by the Babylonian king Šamaš-šuma-ukin over

3204-425: The Lydians and captured their capital of Sardis except for its citadel, and Ardys might have been killed in this attack. Ardys's son and successor, Sadyattes , might possibly also have been killed in another Cimmerian attack on Lydia in 635 BCE. Soon after 635 BCE, with Assyrian approval and in alliance with the Lydians, the Scythians under Madyes entered Anatolia, expelled the Treres from Asia Minor, and defeated

3293-421: The Medes supported him, and Madyes helped Ashurbanipal suppress the revolt externally by invading the Medes. The Median king Phraortes was killed in battle, either against the Assyrians or against Madyes himself, who then imposed Scythian hegemony over Media for twenty-eight years on behalf of the Assyrians, thus starting a period which Greek authors called the “Scythian rule over Asia.” Madyes soon expanded

3382-402: The Mediterranean Sea and the Sea of Marmara broke through to the Black Sea, which at the time, according to the hypothesis, was a low-lying body of fresh water. Many geologists, however, claim that the strait is much older, even if relatively young on a geologic timescale. The limits of the Bosporus are defined as the line connecting the lighthouses of Rumeli Feneri and Anadolu Feneri in

3471-409: The Neo-Assyrian Empire again, but he fell ill and died in 640 BCE, and was succeeded by his son Sandakšatru . In 637 BCE, the Thracian Treres tribe who had migrated across the Thracian Bosporos and invaded Anatolia , under their king Kōbos and in alliance with Sandakšatru's Cimmerians and the Lycians , attacked Lydia during the seventh year of the reign of Gyges's son Ardys . They defeated

3560-431: The Neo-Assyrian Empire but failed just like his father. The power of the Cimmerians dwindled quickly after the death of Lygdamis, although the Lydian kings Ardys and Sadyattes might however have either died fighting the Cimmerians or were deposed for being incapable of efficiently fighting them, respectively in c.  637 and c.  635 BCE . Around c.  635 BCE , and with Neo-Assyrian approval,

3649-472: The Neo-Assyrian Empire. Lygdamis soon broke his oath and attacked the Neo-Assyrian Empire again, but during his military campaign he contracted a grave illness whose symptoms included paralysis of half of his body and vomiting of blood as well as gangrene of the genitals, and he consequently committed suicide in 640 BCE in Cilicia itself. Lygdamis was succeeded as king of the Cimmerians in Cilicia by his son Sandakšatru , who continued Lygdamis's attacks against

Treres - Misplaced Pages Continue

3738-440: The Proto-Iranic term *madu- had become *malu- in Scythian, hence why the scholar Mikhail Bukharin  [ ru ] considered the derivation of Madyes from *madu- as unlikely, and, noting that the name of Madyes was transmitted through Persian sources to the Greek authors who recorded it, proposed that the name Μαδυης instead originated from a Western Iranic form *Mādava- , meaning “ Median .” In

3827-410: The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, but were regained with the Treaty of Kars in 1921), was a consideration in Turkey's decision to abandon neutrality in foreign affairs . Turkey declared war against Germany in February 1945, but did not engage in offensive actions. Turkey joined NATO in 1952, thus affording the straits even more strategic importance as a commercial and military waterway. During

3916-475: The Scythian hegemony to the state of Urartu as well, with Media, Mannai and Urartu all continuing to exist as kingdoms under Scythian suzerainty. During the 7th century BCE, the bulk of the Cimmerians were operating in Anatolia, where they constituted a threat against the Scythians’ Assyrian allies, who since 669 BCE were ruled by Madyes's uncle, that is Esarhaddon's son and Šērūʾa-ēṭirat's brother, Ashurbanipal . Assyrian records in 657 BCE might have referred to

4005-500: The Scythians took advantage of the power vacuum created by the crumbling of the power of their former Assyrian allies and overran the Levant and reached as far south as Palestine till the borders of Egypt , where their advance was stopped by the marshes of the Nile Delta , after which the pharaoh Psamtik I met them and convinced them to turn back by offering them gifts. The Scythians retreated by passing through Askalon largely without any incident, although some stragglers looted

4094-513: The Scythians under their king Madyes entered Central Anatolia and defeated the Cimmerians and Treres. This final defeat of the Cimmerians was carried out by the joint forces of Madyes's Scythians, whom Strabo of Amasia credits with expelling the Treres from Asia Minor, and of the Lydians led by their king Alyattes , who was himself the son of Sadyattes as well as the grandson of Ardys and the great-grandson of Gyges, whom Herodotus of Halicarnassus and Polyaenus of Bithynia claim permanently defeated

4183-428: The Scythians were operating as allies of Cyaxares and the Medes in their war against Assyria . The Scythians were finally expelled from West Asia by the Medes in the 600s BCE, after which they retreated into the Pontic Steppe . The Graeco-Roman authors conflated Madyes with his predecessors and successors into a single figure by claiming that it was Madyes himself who led the Scythians from Central Asia into chasing

4272-404: The Scythians were thus brought into a marital alliance with Assyria, and Šērūʾa-ēṭirat was likely the mother of Bartatua's son Madyes. Bartatua's marriage to Šērūʾa-ēṭirat required that he would pledge allegiance to Assyria as a vassal, and in accordance to Assyrian law, the territories ruled by him would be his fief granted by the Assyrian king, which made the Scythian presence in West Asia

4361-433: The Strait prone to deposition are periodically dredged. The name of the strait comes from the Ancient Greek Βόσπορος ( Bósporos ), which was folk-etymologised as βοὸς πόρος , i.e. "cattle strait" (like "Ox-ford" ), from the genitive of boûs βοῦς 'ox, cattle' + poros πόρος 'passage', thus meaning 'cattle-passage', or 'cow passage'. This is a reference to the Greek mythological story of Io , who

4450-404: The Strait. Under the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi of 8 July 1833, the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits were to be closed to the naval vessels of other powers on Russian demand. By the terms of the London Straits Convention , concluded on 13 July 1841 between the Great Powers of Europe ( Russia , the United Kingdom , France , Austria and Prussia ), the "ancient rule" of the Ottoman Empire

4539-620: The Thracian tribes who lived around Lake Bistonis in southern Thrace. Pliny the Elder also referred to a group of the Treres who lived in southeastern Illyria, and, alongside the Dardani and Pieres , were located near the boundary of the Macedonian kingdom from which the river Axios flowed into it at the time of Philip II and Alexander III . Bosporus The Bosporus or Bosphorus Strait ( / ˈ b ɒ s p ər ə s , ˈ b ɒ s f ər ə s / BOSS -pər-əs, BOSS -fər-əs ; Turkish : İstanbul Boğazı , lit.   'Istanbul strait', colloquially Boğaz )

SECTION 50

#1732771808536

4628-400: The Turkish Government started to discuss creating a man-made canal roughly 80 kilometres (50 mi) long that would run north–south through the western edges of Istanbul Province as a second route from the Black Sea to the Marmara. It was suggested that this would reduce the risk from shipping to the Bosporus. The controverislal Kanal İstanbul project continues to be debated. In 2022

4717-421: The area to the north, are heavily settled, with the city of Istanbul 's metropolitan population of 17 million inhabitants extending inland from both banks. The Bosporus Strait and the Dardanelles Strait at the opposite end of the Sea of Marmara are together known as the Turkish Straits . Sections of the shore of the Bosporus in Istanbul have been reinforced with concrete or rubble and those sections of

4806-413: The base from which they expanded their empire in the centuries that followed. At its peak between the 16th and 18th centuries, the Ottoman Empire was able to use the strategic importance of the Bosporus to wrest control of the entire Black Sea area, which they regarded as an "Ottoman lake", from which Russian warships were prohibited. Subsequently, several international treaties have governed access to

4895-413: The bottom. These channels are the main transport pathway for sediments to the deep sea where they form sedimentary deposits. The team studied the detailed flow within these channels and its findings included that: The channel complex and the density flow provide the ideal natural laboratory for investigating and detailing the structure of the flow field through the channel. Our initial findings show that

4984-407: The canal even though a route for it had been established. The Bosphorus takes its name from the Greek mythological story of Io , who was transformed into a cow and, pursued by a gadfly, was condemned to wander the Earth until she reached the Strait. There she met the Titan Prometheus , who comforted her by telling her that she would be restored to human form by Zeus and become the ancestor of

5073-430: The common noun βόσπορος , meaning "a strait", and was also formerly applied to the Hellespont in Classical Greek by Aeschylus and Sophocles . As a maritime waterway, the Bosporus connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and thence to the Aegean and Mediterranean seas via the Dardanelles. It also connects various seas along the Eastern Mediterranean , the Balkans , the Near East , and Western Eurasia . Thus,

5162-402: The course alteration, making it impossible for ships approaching from the opposite direction to see around the bends. The risks posed by this geography are further multiplied by the heavy ferry traffic across the Strait, linking the European and Asian sides of the city. As such, all the dangers and obstacles characteristic of narrow waterways are present and acute in this vital sea lane. In 2011,

5251-399: The course of 652 to 648 BCE, the Cimmerians and Treres moved to Cilicia on the north-west border of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in c.  640 BCE itself, immediately after their third invasion of Lydia and the attack on the Asian Greek cities. There, Lygdamis allied with the king of the then rebellious Assyrian vassal state of Tabal , Mussi, to attack the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Although

5340-424: The dues levied by Turkey for freight ships increased 500% to US$ 4 per ton, the first change since 1983. The Bosporus is fairly deep and there is no definite limit on the depth and length of a ship, but ships over 150 metres long or 10 metres deep must pre-book their passage. Those over 300 metres long must follow a special clearance procedure. There is an air draft limit of 57 metres. Two suspension bridges and

5429-537: The early 21st century, the Turkish Straits have become particularly important for the oil industry. Russian oil, from ports such as Novorossiysk , was exported by tankers primarily to the U.S. via the Bosporus and the Dardanelles straits. In 2011, Turkey proposed to build a 50 km (31 mi) canal west of the Bosporus, suggesting that it would reduce the risk presented to the Bosporus by oil tankers and other cargo ships. The project proved highly controversial and, as of 2022 , work had not been started on building

SECTION 60

#1732771808536

5518-426: The early 6th century BCE, with this presence in West Asia being an extension of the Scythian kingdom of the steppes. During this period, the Scythian kings' headquarters were located in the steppes to the north of Caucasus, and contact with the civilisation of West Asia would have an important influence on the formation of Scythian culture. Madyes was the son of the previous Scythian king, Bartatua , and possibly

5607-437: The existing Black Sea Coastal Highway, and allowing transit traffic to bypass city traffic. The Marmaray project, featuring a 13.7 km (8.5 mi) long undersea railway tunnel , opened on 29 October 2013. Approximately 1,400 m (4,593 ft) of the tunnel runs under the strait, at a depth of about 55 m (180 ft). An undersea water supply tunnel with a length of 5,551 m (18,212 ft), named

5696-515: The floor of the Bosporus, which would be the sixth largest river on Earth if it were on land. The 2010 team of scientists, led by the University of Leeds , used a robotic "yellow submarine" to observe detailed flows within this "undersea river", scientifically referred to as a submarine channel , for the first time. Submarine channels are similar to land rivers, but they are formed by density currents—underwater flow mixtures of sand, mud and water that are denser than sea water and so sink and flow along

5785-407: The flow in these channels is quite different to the flow in river channels on land. Specifically, as flow moves around a bend it spirals in the opposite direction in the deep sea compared to the spiral found in river channels on land. This is important in understanding the sedimentology and layers of sediment deposited by these systems. The central tenet of the Black Sea deluge hypothesis is that as

5874-399: The grandson of Bartatua's predecessor, Išpakaia . Išpakaia had been an enemy of the then superpower in West Asia, the Neo-Assyrian Empire , and was killed in battle against the Assyrian king Esarhaddon , after which Bartatua became the king of the Scythians and instead sought to ally with the Assyrians. The name of Madyes's mother is not recorded, but, since Bartatua had asked in marriage

5963-431: The greatest of all heroes, Heracles (Hercules). According to ancient Greek mythology , it was said that colossal floating rocks known as the Symplegades , or Clashing Rocks, once guarded both sides of the Bosporus and destroyed any ship that attempted to pass through the strait by crushing them. Their destructive power was finally overcome by the Argonaut hero Jason who managed to pass between them unscathed, whereupon

6052-445: The hand of the Assyrian princess Šērūʾa-ēṭirat , who was the daughter of Esarhaddon and the sister of his successors Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin , and there was a close alliance between the Scythians and Assyria under the reigns of Bartatua and Madyes, this suggests that the Assyrian priests did approve of this marriage between a daughter of an Assyrian king and a nomadic lord, which had never happened before in Assyrian history;

6141-415: The hot, humid summer months. Most of these summer embassies were on the European shore at Yeniköy (Austrian), Tarabya (German, English, French, Italian) and Büyükdere (Spanish, Russian). Some of the buildings still survive today although the British Summer Embassy burnt down in 1911 and the Italian Summer Embassy, a fine building by Raimondo d'Aronco , survives in very dilapidated condition. Following

6230-400: The imperial navies of various empires until the 19th century, after which it became a historic neighbourhood at the heart of Istanbul. Before the 20th century it was already known that the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara flow into each other in a geographic example of "density flow". Then in August 2010, a continuous 'underwater channel' of suspension composition was discovered flowing along

6319-466: The kingship over the Universe, which rightfully belonged to the Assyrian king, had been usurped by the Cimmerians and had to be won back by Assyria. This situation continued throughout the rest of the 650s BCE and the early 640s BCE. In 644 BCE, the Cimmerians, led by Tugdammi, attacked the kingdom of Lydia , defeated the Lydians and captured the Lydian capital, Sardis ; the Lydian king Gyges died during this attack. After sacking Sardis, Tugdammi led

6408-540: The north, and between the Ahırkapı Feneri and the Kadıköy İnciburnu Feneri in the south ("Fener" is Turkish for lighthouse). Between these limits, the strait is 31 km (17 nmi) long, with a width of 3,329 m (1.798 nmi) at the northern entrance and 2,826 m (1.526 nmi) at the southern entrance. Its maximum width is 3,420 m (1.85 nmi) between Umuryeri and Büyükdere Limanı, and minimum width

6497-434: The ocean rose 72.5 metres (238 ft) at the end of the last Ice Age when the massive ice sheets melted, the sealed Bosporus was overwhelmed by a spectacular flood that increased the then fresh water Black Sea Lake by 50%, and drove people back from the shores for many months. This hypothesis was supported by the findings of undersea explorer Robert Ballard , who discovered settlements along the old shoreline; scientists dated

6586-418: The public in the summer of 2022. The exact cause and date of the formation of the Bosporus remain a subject of debate among geologists. One recent hypothesis, dubbed the Black Sea deluge hypothesis , which was launched by a study of the same name in 1997 by two scientists from Columbia University , postulates that the Bosporus was flooded around 5600 BCE (revised to 6800 BCE in 2003) when the rising waters of

6675-681: The rocks became fixed, opening Greek access to the Black Sea. The Bosporus is traversed by numerous passenger and vehicular ferries daily, as well as by recreational and fishing boats ranging from dinghies to yachts owned by both public and private entities. The Strait also serves a significant amount of international commercial shipping traffic in the form of freighters and tankers . Between its northern limits at Rumeli Feneri and Anadolu Feneri and its southern ones at Ahırkapı Feneri and Kadıköy İnciburnu Feneri , there are numerous dangerous points for large-scale maritime traffic that require sharp turns and management of visual obstructions. Famously,

6764-667: The straits area. The reversion was formalised under the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Turkish Straits of 20 July 1936. That convention - which is still in force - treats the straits as an international shipping lane except that Turkey retains the right to restrict the naval traffic of non–Black Sea states. Turkey was neutral in the Second World War until February 1945, and

6853-552: The straits were closed to the warships of belligerent nations during this time, although some German auxiliary vessels were permitted to transit. In diplomatic conferences, Soviet representatives had expressed an interest in obtaining naval bases on the straits. This, together with Stalin's demands for the restitution of the Turkish provinces of Kars , Artvin and Ardahan to the Soviet Union (which were lost by Turkey in

6942-402: The stretch between Kandilli Point and Aşiyan requires a 45-degree course alteration in a location where the currents can reach 7 to 8 knots (3.6 to 4.1 m/s). To the south, at Yeniköy , the necessary course alteration is 80 degrees. Compounding these difficult changes in trajectory, the rear and forward sight lines at Kandilli and Yeniköy are also completely blocked prior to and during

7031-676: The study). The project was led by Jeff Peakall and Daniel Parsons at the University of Leeds , in collaboration with the University of Southampton , Memorial University of Newfoundland , and the Institute of Marine Sciences . The survey was run and coordinated from the Institute of Marine Sciences research ship, the R/V Koca Piri Reis . The shores of the Bosporus were once lined with small fishing villages that had grown up since Byzantine times but really came into their own in

7120-467: The temple of Astarte in the city, which was considered to be the most ancient of all temples to that goddess, as a result of which the perpetrators of this sacrilege and their descendants were allegedly cursed by Astarte with a “female disease,” due to which they became a class of transvestite diviners called the Anarya (meaning “unmanly” in Scythian ). According to Babylonian records, around 615 BCE

7209-623: The territories ruled by the Scythians extending from the Halys river in Anatolia in the west to the Caspian Sea and the eastern borders of Media in the east, and from Transcaucasia in the north to the northern borders of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the south. By the 620s BCE, the Neo-Assyrian Empire began unravelling after the death of Ashurbanipal in 631 BCE: in addition to internal instability within Assyria itself, Babylon revolted against

7298-803: The west of the Oescus river along with the Tilataei. The Treres and Tilataei had the Triballi as their western neighbours. In the 4th century BCE, the Triballi migrated to the east and assimilated the Treres and Tilataei, who consequently disappeared from history. By the late 1st century BCE, the territory of the Treres and Tilataei was occupied by the Thraco-Celtic tribe of the Serdi . Strabo of Amasia also claimed that another group of Treres were one of

7387-601: Was also known as Damalis ( Δάμαλις ), as it was where the Athenian general Chares had erected a monument to his wife Damalis, which included a colossal statue of a cow (the name δαμάλις translating to 'heifer'). The English spelling with -ph- ( Bosphor ) is not justified by the ancient Greek name, and dictionaries prefer the spelling with -p- . However -ph- occurs as a variant in medieval Latin (as Bosphor , and occasionally Bosphorus or Bospherus ), and in medieval Greek sometimes as Βόσφορος , giving rise to

7476-499: Was associated with strawberry-growing while Çengelköy was famous for its sweet cucumbers. As part of the only passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, the Bosporus has always been of great importance from a commercial and military point of view, and it remains strategically important today. It is a major sea access route for numerous countries, including Russia and Ukraine . Control over it has been an objective of

7565-440: Was deported to Assyria, while Lygdamis carried it out but failed because, according to Neo-Assyrian sources, he became ill and fire broke out in his camp. Following this, Lygdamis was faced with a revolt against himself, after which ended his hostilities against the Neo-Assyrian Empire and sent tribute to the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurbanipal to form an alliance with him, while Ashurbanipal forced Lygdamis to swear an oath to not attack

7654-546: Was given to the Armenian architect Sarkis Balyan by Sultan Abdülhamid II in 1880. The house he built on it was later demolished. The island became a walled garden and then a water sports centre, before it was given to the Galatasaray Sports Club , hence its name. However, in the 2010s it was completely overbuilt with nightclubs. In another change, the government had these torn down in 2017. It reopened to

7743-598: Was re-established by closing the Turkish Straits to all warships , barring those of the Sultan 's allies during wartime. This benefited British naval power at the expense of the Russians, as the latter then lacked direct access to the Mediterranean. During the 19th century many of the foreign powers represented in Constantinople maintained second embassies up the Bosporus and would relocate their staff there during

7832-514: Was the son of the Scythian king Bartatua and the Assyrian princess Šērūʾa-ēṭirat , and, as an ally of the Neo-Assyrian Empire , which was then the superpower of West Asia and whose king Ashurbanipal was his uncle, he brought Scythian power to its peak in West Asia. After the Neo-Assyrian Empire started unravelling, Madyes was assassinated by the Median king Cyaxares , who expelled the Scythians from West Asia. The name Madyes

7921-586: Was transformed into a cow and condemned to wander the Earth until she crossed the Bosporus, where she met the Titan Prometheus , who comforted her by telling her that she would be restored to human form by Zeus and become the ancestor of the greatest of all heroes, Heracles (Hercules). Io supposedly went ashore near Chrysopolis (present-day Üsküdar ), which was named Bous 'the Cow'. The same site

#535464