:''For other meanings, see
Sinop and
Sinope''
'Sinop' (from
Hittite: 'Sinuwa', in
Greek: 'Σινώπη'/Sinope) is a city with a population of 47,000 on
İnce Burun (
İnceburun,
Cape Ince), by its
Cape Sinop (
Sinop Burnu,
Boztepe Cape,
Boztepe Burnu [1]) which is situated on the most northern edge of the Turkish side of
Black Sea coast, in the ancient region of
Paphlagonia, in modern-day northern
Turkey, historically known as 'Sinope'. It is the capital of
Sinop Province.
History
Long used as a
Hittite port which appears in Hittite sources as "Sinuwa" (J. Garstang, The Hittite Empire, p. 74), the city proper was re-founded as a
Greek colony from the city of
Miletus in the
7th century BC (
Xenophon, ''Anabasis'' 6.1.15;
Diodorus Siculus 14.31.2;
Strabo 12.545). Sinope flourished as the Black Sea port of a caravan route that led from the upper Euphrates valley (
Herodotus 1.72; 2.34), issued its own coinage, founded colonies, and gave its name to a red
arsenic sulfate mined in Cappadocia, called "Sinopic red earth" (''Miltos Sinôpikê'') or
sinople. It escaped Persian domination until the early
4th century BC, and in
183 BC it was captured by
Pharnaces I and became capital of the kingdom of
Pontus.
Lucullus conquered Sinope for Rome in
70 BC, and Julius Caesar established a Roman colony there, Colonia Julia Felix, in
47 BC.
Mithradates Eupator was born and buried at Sinope, and it was the birthplace of
Diogenes, of
Diphilus, poet and actor of the New Attic
comedy, of the historian Baton, and of the Christian heretic of the
2nd century AD,
Marcion.
It remained with the Empire of the East or the
Byzantines. It was a part of the
Empire of Trebizond from the sacking of
Constantinople by the
Fourth Crusade in
1204 until the capture of the city by the
Seljuk Turks of
Rûm in
1214.
After
1261, Sinop became home two successive independent
emirates following the fall of the Seljuks: the
Pervâne and the
CandaroÄŸlu. It was captured by the
Ottomans in
1458.
In November
1853, at the start of the
Crimean War, in the
Battle of Sinop, the
Russians, under the command of admiral
Nakhimov, destroyed an Ottoman frigate squadron in Sinop, leading Britain and France to declare war on Russia.
Miscellaneous
Sinop is cited as
a possible location for Atlantis.
Sinop has given its name to a
crater on Mars.
See also
★
Pervâne Dynasty
★
CandaroÄŸlu Dynasty
External links
★
''Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites'': Sinope
★
''Sinop, Turkey Governorship Website''
References
★ John Garstang, The Hittite Empire (University Press, Edinburgh, 1930).