Seljuqs, Crusaders and Armenians in Anatolia: overlapping powers

The frame

Here the site follows the Met's timeline for Anatolia and the Caucasus, 1000-1400 A.D., whose overview describes "a time of Turkic and Muslim expansion at the expense of the Byzantine empire's eastern territories". The start of the site's range has two dates, both from the same page: the key event of 1071, "the defeat of the Byzantine army by Seljuq forces at the Battle of Manzikert (in present-day eastern Turkey)", which "leads to the penetration, settlement, and conquest of Anatolia by Turkic tribes", and the chart's "Seljuq sultanate of Anatolia, 1081-1307". In 1096-1097 "the first Crusaders arrive in Anatolia en route to the Holy Land"; 1205-1243 is called "the zenith of Anatolian Seljuq power"; and in 1243 the Seljuqs were defeated by the Ilkhanids, the Mongol dynasty ruling in Iran, at the Battle of Köse Dagh, were forced to pay a large tribute, and Anatolia became closely linked to Iran. The entry for ca. 1261-1310 names "dozens of independent regional principalities", among them the Ottomans in northwestern Anatolia. Source 1.

Boundaries and overlaps

The powers in the chart run beyond the range on both sides: the Crusader kingdoms are listed at 1098-1268, the Kingdom of Armenian Cilicia at 1099-1375, the Artuqid dynasty at 1101-1409, the empire of Nicaea at 1204-1261, the Seljuq sultanate to 1307 and the Ottoman principality from ca. 1299. Under 1204, when Byzantium was conquered and occupied by Western armies of the Fourth Crusade, the page names among the Byzantine states in exile "the empire of the Grand Komnenoi at Trebizond (1204-1461)". The Komnenian rule at Trebizond therefore runs parallel to two periods of this site, this one and the next, and continues eight years beyond the end of the next (1453); it belongs to both and to neither alone. The chart continues the Byzantine empire to 1453. Source 1.

On this site

Three items are placed in this period. "The Great Mosque and Hospital of Divriği: a couple's foundation" deals with the mosque founded by Emir Ahmet Shah and the hospital founded by his wife Turan Melek in 1228-1229, and with the two different starting points that the UNESCO page gives for Turkish rule in the region. "Ani: the rise and decline of an Armenian capital" deals with the Bagratid capital, the Byzantine, Seljuk and Georgian sovereignty that followed, and the causes of decline that UNESCO lists. "Konya: a palace and a mosque in the Seljuq capital" reads the Met's sentences on the capital at Konya from 1116 and on the palace and mosque of Kai Qubad I, and what they do not describe. The site has no item yet from the Crusader kingdoms, Armenian Cilicia or Trebizond.