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King Šuppiluliuma I in Hatay Archaeology Museum[citation needed]
An artifact from the middle and late Bronze Age, 2000–1200 BC in Hatay Archaeology Museum
Antiquity[edit]
Main article: Antioch
The Antioch chalice, first half of sixth century, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Humans have occupied the area of Antioch since the Chalcolithic (6th millennium BCE), as revealed by archaeological excavations of Alalakh, among others.
The Macedonian King Alexander the Great, after defeating the Achaemenid Empire in the Battle of Issus in 333 BC, followed the Orontes south into Syria and occupied the area. The city of Antioch was founded in 300 BC, after the death of Alexander, by the Seleucid emperor Seleucus I Nicator. It played an important role as one of the largest cities in the Seleucid, Roman, and Byzantine empires. The city swapped hands between the Romans and the Sasanian Empire in the 3rd century. It was the battleground for the siege of Antioch (253) when Shapur I defeated the Roman army and the later Battle of Antioch (613) where the Persians were successful at capturing the city for the last time. It was a key city during the early history of Christianity, in particular that of the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Antiochian Orthodox Church and the Maronite Church, as well as during the spread of Islam and the Crusades.
Biblical era[edit]
Acts 11:26: "So it was that for an entire year they met withe the church and taught a great many people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called 'Christians.'"
Rashidun period[edit]
Recapture of Antioch in 969
In 637, during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, Antioch was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate during the Battle of the Iron Bridge. The city became known in Arabic as أنطاكية (ʾAnṭākiya). Since the Umayyad Caliphate was unable to penetrate the Anatolian plateau, Antioch found itself on the frontline of the conflicts between two hostile empires during the next 350 years, so that the city went into a precipitous decline. After the demise of Umayyad rule, Antioch became part of the Abbasid empire (except for a brief rule of the Tulunids), Ikhshidids and Hamdanids.
In 969, the city was reconquered for the Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas by Michael Bourtzes and the stratopedarches Peter. It soon became the seat of a dux, who commanded the forces of the local themes and was the most important officer on the Empire's eastern border,[citation needed] held by such men as Nikephoros Ouranos. In 1078, Philaretos Brachamios, an Armenian hero, seized power. He held the city until the Seljuk Turks captured it from him in 1084. The Sultanate of Rum held it only fourteen years before the Crusaders arrived.
Crusader era[edit]
Main article: Principality of Antioch
Capture of Antioch by Louis Gallait
Roman sarcophagi in Hatay Archaeology Museum
The Crusaders' Siege of Antioch between October 1097 and June 1098 during the First Crusade resulted in its fall. The Crusaders caused significant damage, including a massacre of its population, both Christian and Muslim. Following the defeat of Seljuk forces arriving to break the siege only four days after its capture by the crusaders, Bohemond I became its overlord. It remained the capital of the Latin Principality of Antioch for nearly two centuries.
In 1268, it fell to the Mamluk sultan Baybars after another siege. Baybars proceeded to massacre the Christian population. The massacre of men, women, and children at Antioch "was the single greatest massacre of the entire crusading era." Priests had their throats slit inside their churches, and women were sold into slavery.
In addition to suffering the ravages of war, the city lost its commercial importance because trade routes to East Asia moved north following the Mongol invasions of the Levant.
Antioch never recovered as a major city, and much of its former role fell to the port of Alexandretta. The diary of the English naval chaplain Henry Teonge records an account of both cities in 1675.
Ottoman city[edit]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding missing information. (July 2015)
Densely built Antakya in 1912: the traditional Muslim city shows no trace of its Hellenistic planning. To the east, orchards (green) fill the plain.
The city was initially the centre of Antakya sanjak, which was part of the Damascus Eyalet. It was later the center of the sanjak of Antakya in Aleppo Eyalet. It was finally the kaza of the Aleppo Sanjak, part of the Aleppo vilayet.
In 1822 (and again in 1872), Antakya was hit by an earthquake and damaged. When Egyptian general Ibrahim Pasha established his headquarters in the city in 1835, it had only some 5,000 inhabitants. Supporters hoped the city might develop thanks to the Euphrates Valley Railway, which was supposed to link it to the port of is-Swēda (Levantine Arabic: السويدية, now Samandağ), but this plan never came to fruition. This scheme is the subject of Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poem Antioch. (1836) in which she reflects of the superiority of trade and commerce over war and conflict. The city suffered repeated outbreaks of cholera due to inadequate infrastructure for sanitation. Later the city developed and rapidly resumed much of its old importance when a railway was built along the lower Orontes valley.
French Mandate and Turkish annexation[edit]
Antioch was part of the Sanjak of Alexandretta during the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, until it was made Hatay State in 1938 after Turkish pressure. An Arab nationalist newspaper in the city run by Zaki al-Arsuzi was shut down by the Turks.[citation needed] On 30 May 1938, an Arab was killed during a riot by a Turkish crowd. On 7 July 1938, the Turkish army entered Antioch. The annexation of the Hatay State by Turkey in 1939, creating Hatay Province, caused an exodus of Christians and Alawites from Antioch east to the French Mandate.
The district of Antakya was created in 2013 from part of the former central district of Hatay.
