The Konya-Karaman Plain is a plain in the Central Anatolia Region of

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

, associated with the

Konya Konya is a major city in central Turkey, on the southwestern edge of the Central Anatolian Plateau, and is the capital of Konya Province. During antiquity and into Seljuk times it was known as Iconium. In 19th-century accounts of the city in En ...

and

Karaman Karaman is a city in south central Turkey, located in Central Anatolia, north of the Taurus Mountains, about south of Konya. It is the seat of Karaman Province and Karaman District.Provinces A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term ''provi ...

. It is a flat plain (a height of 900–1050 m) that covers the majority of Konya Basin and constitutes the main part of the Central Anatolian Plateau. The plain is one of the driest areas in Turkey. To alleviate it, a major

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...

al Konya Plain Project was launched in 2012. The project includes 14 irrigation, three

potable water Drinking water or potable water is water that is safe for ingestion, either when drunk directly in liquid form or consumed indirectly through food preparation. It is often (but not always) supplied through taps, in which case it is also calle ...

and one energy investments, including the Blue Tunnel Project and the Bagbasi Dam. The plain is dominated by the Çarşamba river, which forms a

delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta"), the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * Delta Air Lines, a major US carrier ...

in its centre.

History

The Konya-Karaman Plain did not possess resources which prehistoric and early historic human communities there required, such as

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...

metal A metal () is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, electricity and thermal conductivity, heat relatively well. These properties are all associated wit ...

chipped stone In archaeology, in particular of the Stone Age, lithic reduction is the process of fashioning stones or rocks from their natural state into tools or weapons by removing some parts. It has been intensely studied and many archaeological industrie ...

, and

ground stone In archaeology, ground stone is a category of stone tool formed by the grinding of a coarse-grained tool stone, either purposely or incidentally. Ground stone tools are usually made of basalt, rhyolite, granite, or other cryptocrystalline and ...

, which pushed its inhabitants to develop procurement networks in as early as the 9th millennium BC, with these networks continuing to exist in the

Bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

and

Iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

Ages. The Konya-Karaman Plain was also one of the driest regions Anatolia during the Holocene, especially during the later

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

corresponding to the 2nd and 1st millennia BC, which would have forced the local populations to develop sophisticated water management practices. The earliest appearance of

there possibly dates to the 3rd millennium BC, which in turn led to the spread of settlement throughout the steppe region of the plain when human settlements had previously been restricted to the alluvium of the rivers.

Hittite Empire

The Çarşamba river which dominates the plain was referred to as the Ḫūlaya River () at the time of the Hittite Empire, while the surrounding lands were called the Ḫūlaya River Land ().

Archaeology

The plain is of considerable archaeological interest, including an important

neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

Çatalhöyük Çatalhöyük (English: Chatalhoyuk ; ; also ''Çatal Höyük'' and ''Çatal Hüyük''; from Turkish language, Turkish ''çatal'' "fork" + ''höyük'' "tumulus") is a Tell (archaeology), tell (a mounded accretion resulting from long-term huma ...

is located within the plain. Oriental Institute archaeologists unearthed a lost ancient kingdom dating to 1400 BC to 600 BC near the Türkmen-Karahöyük site in 2020, which might be connected to

Tarḫuntašša Tarḫuntašša ( and : ) was a Bronze Age city in south-central Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) mentioned in contemporary documents. Its location is unknown. The city was the capital of the Hittite Empire for a time and later became a regional power ...

and its king Hartapu. A document written in Luwian hieroglyphs that describes Hartapu's victory over

Phrygia In classical antiquity, Phrygia ( ; , ''Phrygía'') was a kingdom in the west-central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. Stories of the heroic age of Greek mythology tell of several legendary Ph ...

was discovered in 2019 by researchers from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

and the Konya Regional Archaeological Survey Project.

References

Sources

* * Landforms of Konya Province {{Konya-geo-stub