The First Asia
The Land That Lent a Continent Its Name
The concept. The word Asia started as a local name on the Aegean coast of Turkey, long before it named a continent. Hittites, Greeks, Persians, Romans, Byzantines and Ottomans each held that coast in turn, and each left something the next one took. I built this book for a trip down it, from Troy to Hierapolis, and it is here as an example of what you can build for yours.
How it was built. From scholarly books on Pergamon, Ephesus, Didyma, Hierapolis, the Attalids, the Galatians and the Jewish communities of Asia Minor, and research reports on the name Asia, the sieges each city survived, and its life from AD 700 to 1922. Alternative-history claims about the sites are included and checked against the record. Every claim says out loud whether it is proved, probable or only a good story.
How it is told. A guide briefs the travellers on each site the night before they see it, in a borrowed comedian’s voice, with Alexander the Great, who made the same journey in 334 BC, turning up along the way. Under the main story runs a second one: the besiegers that won here were earthquakes and silt.
It is written for someone about to go, so that each ruin makes sense when you are standing in it.
