This is the History of the World Podcast with me Chris Hasler

And you're listening to volume three, the classical world

episode 35 the Battle of Zella. Oh, Ancient Zeller was a Pontic city which is located at the modern city of Zille in the north of Turkey,

around 70 miles from the Black Sea.

We don't know a great deal about this area until the emergence of the Hattie culture first

mentioned as existing around the time of the Acadians towards the latter end of the third

millennium B.C. festivals were held by the Hattie at a cityaraq, which would have been in the northern reaches of their

area of influence, in the same area of Anatolia as Zella.

One of the more influential cities of this area of Anatolia was Hatusha, which would later

become the capital of the Hittite Empire in the second millennium

b.C. and scriptures from the city of Hatusha make reference to a

palace settlement at a place called Sapinua, which is less than 40 miles west of

Zeller.

All of these lands and cities were being the heartland of the Hittite Empire in this millennium.

Upon the collapse of the Hittite Empire, the capital city of Hittusha was destroyed

and we don't really know a lot about what was going on in

the area of Zeller in a direct aftermath. Certainly the Friggian culture was

among the first to emerge in Central Anatolia, but this would have been mainly

in the lands to the west of Zeller.

After the late Bronze Age collapse, the political status of these lands was very humble

and comparatively negligible in the grand scheme of international politics and it would be

this way for many centuries.

...