from the north, 1901
Founding The settlement dates to the Iron Age. According to
Tadevos Hakobyan it was established during the reign of the
Urartian king
Menua (r. 810–785 BC). adopted in Greek as or . The suffix
-kert is frequently found in Armenian toponymy, meaning "built by". According to
Movses Khorenatsi, Manzikert was founded by Manaz, one of the sons of
Hayk, the legendary and eponymous patriarch and progenitor of the
Armenians.
Medieval The lands around Manzikert belonged to the Manavazyans, an Armenian
nakharar family which claimed descent from Manaz, until AD 333, when King
Khosrov III Arshakuni of Armenia ordered that all members of the family be put to the sword. and served as an important trading center located in the canton of Apahunik' in the
Turuberan province of the ancient
Kingdom of Armenia. Following the Arab invasions of Armenia in the 7th century, it also served as the capital of the
Kaysite emirate from around 860 until 964. Manzikert was the site of the
Council of Manzikert in 726. After the Armenian revolt of 771–772, the Abbasid government encouraged the migration of Arab tribes to the region, which resulted in the settling of Arab tribes near Manzikert. Under Abbasid rule, the city was a major center of commerce and industry and became one of the main cities in Asia Minor. In 991, after the death of
Badh ibn Dustak of
Marwanids, the
Georgian king David III of Tao seized Manzikert from the Marwanids and annexed it to the Georgian kingdom of
Tao. He expelled the Arabs from there and settled Georgians and Armenians in their place. Later, in 998, the Marwanids, under the command of
Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn Marwān, attempted to capture Manzikert from the Georgians, but they were defeated by David III of Tao. In 1001, Manzikert was annexed by the Byzantine Empire on the basis of David III’s forced testament. In 1054, the
Seljuk Turks made an
attempt to capture the city but were repulsed by the city's garrison under the command of
Basil Apocapes. The
Battle of Manzikert was fought near the town in August 1071. In one of the most decisive defeats in
Byzantine history, the Seljuk sultan
Alp Arslan defeated and captured Emperor
Romanus Diogenes, which led to the ethnic and religious transformation of Armenia and
Anatolia and the establishment of the
Seljuk Sultanate of Rum and later the
Ottoman Empire and the
Republic of Turkey. The Seljuks pillaged Manzikert itself, killed much of its population and burned the city to the ground. In 1915 Manzikert was part of
Bitlis Vilayet and had a population of 5,000, the great majority of them Armenians. and one Armenian school. Like many other towns and villages during the
Armenian genocide, its Armenian population was uprooted and subjected to massacres. ==Climate==