Merzifon is today the most populous district of Amasya and one of the principal market towns of the inland Central Black Sea region. It lies on the southern foot of Tavşan Dağı, about 750 metres above sea level, at the edge of the plain that bears its name. Writing in the early 20th century, Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar describes the town as standing on "a most pleasant hill" that slopes gently towards the level ground at the southern foot of Taşan Dağı; it is ringed with vineyards, and before it, to the south-east, stretches a broad open plain known as Yedikır. The road linking Istanbul and Ankara to the port of Samsun runs across this plain, and the town's position where the routes descending from Central Anatolia to the Black Sea coast converge goes a long way towards explaining its historical weight. Merzifon is well known for the mosques, hans and pious endowments of the Ottoman period, but its older layers are far less often discussed. What follows is concerned with those layers, from the first fortress of the Hittite age through Pontic, Roman and Byzantine rule to the Danishmendid conquest.
Early Settlement on a Fertile Plain
Traces of settlement around Merzifon go back to the Chalcolithic. Surface surveys in the area have identified hundreds of mounds and settlement sites, and the pottery and finds recovered from them show that occupation reaches back to around 5500 BC. The Onhoroz mound and the Büyük and Küçük Küllük mounds at the village of Ortaova, together with the mounds of the village of Hayrettin, are counted among the most important Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age settlements. Surrounded by lakes and fertile soil, the plain lent itself to both hunting and farming. Describing the fertile lowland that extends north of Amaseia as far as the Halys (Kızılırmak), Strabo gives part of it the name Chiliokomon, "the Thousand Villages"; according to the TDV encyclopaedia, Phazemon too was sought at the point where this fertile Chiliokomon plain begins. The presence of hundreds of mounds suggests that the name was no exaggeration and that the district really was densely settled.
This picture is the product of a long history of research. In the summer of 1972, as part of the Central Black Sea survey directed for Istanbul University by U. Bahadır Alkım, A. M. Dinçol and J. Yakar travelled the line running through Durağan, Kargı, Osmancık and Gümüşhacıköy to Merzifon, but because they rarely left the highway they found no remains worth recording between Gümüşhacıköy and Merzifon. The real map of the plain was drawn by the surface surveys that Mehmet and Nesrin Özsait conducted from 1986 onwards. Between 1997 and 1999 Şevket Dönmez also worked in Merzifon, Gümüşhacıköy, Suluova and Göynücek, re-examining a number of these mounds and recording several for the first time. The difference shows how differently a quick sweep along a single road and a survey carried out on foot, village by village, can turn out.
The mounds published by Dönmez make plain how long the plain was used without interruption. Alıcık Höyük, at the eighth kilometre of the Merzifon-Gümüşhacıköy road, three kilometres south of the road and some 500 metres south-east of the village of Alıcık, is a settlement built on a natural hill, about 25 metres high and measuring 150 by 120 metres; besides Early Bronze Age II-III, Middle and Late Bronze Age, Hellenistic and Roman material, it has yielded painted pottery of the Late Iron Age. At Onhoroz Tepe, a kilometre and a half north-east of the village of Yolüstü, Middle and Late Iron Age settlements were identified alongside layers running from the Early Bronze Age to the Hellenistic period. Seven kilometres south of Merzifon and two kilometres north-east of the village of Hayrettin, Alacapınar Tepe and Delicik Tepe, a hundred metres apart and known in older records as Hayrettin I and II, have both produced Bronze Age, Late Iron Age and Hellenistic material. The painted jug fragments from Delicik Tepe find their parallels at Akalan, Maşat Höyük, Eskiyapar, Kerkenes Dağ, Alişar and Kültepe; in the Iron Age, in other words, the Merzifon plain shared the same pottery tradition as the great centres of Central Anatolia.
A Frontier between the Hittites and the Kaska
In the Hittite age the region owed its importance to its proximity to the Hittite capital Hattusa and to the two natural routes that passed through it. These two roads are described in the 1974 article in which Dinçol and Yakar discussed the location of Nerik, the sacred city of the Hittites. According to them, the first followed the line of today's highway, descending through Çorum, Merzifon, Havza and Kavak to Samsun, while the second ran through Çorum, Merzifon, Havza and Vezirköprü to Oymaağaç and on towards Alaçam. This Oymaağaç is the mound near Vezirköprü that bears the remains of a wall and a postern; since Merzifon district also has a village called Oymaağaç and a site named Oymaağaç-Kalebaşı examined by the Özsaits, the two places are sometimes confused. The same scholars write that researchers agree in placing the Kaska country known from Hittite documents north of the Merzifon-Amasya line, between Sinop and Ordu. On this view the Merzifon plain was a frontier zone lying between the land of Hatti and the Kaska, the stage for the Kaska-Hittite struggle that lasted throughout Hittite history.
The nucleus of Merzifon is accepted to have been a small frontier post, a fortress built to secure the trade route and to hold off Kaska raids. The fortress is sought today on the hilly site in the middle of the town; the inner citadel, which also appears in Ottoman records, stood on this hill, while the outer citadel lay at its foot and has not survived. Hüsameddin, too, remarks that the castle whose ruins could be seen on the south-eastern side of the town was "small and of no importance to be counted among ancient monuments"; even at the start of the 20th century, in other words, little of the structure remained. The account of the fortress's Hittite origin is less a fact documented by an excavation report than an assumption based on the settlement pattern of the region and the course of its roads. Given that Hittite campaigns to the north passed along these routes and that the northern end of the roads fell under Kaska control when Hittite power weakened, it seems reasonable that a watch post was needed on the plain; this too, however, is an inference.
From the Dark Age to Persian Rule
Around 1200 BC, when Hittite dominion in Anatolia collapsed, the region entered a dark period. How this period unfolded on the Merzifon plain is a matter of debate among archaeologists. The Özsaits compared some red-painted sherds collected at Merzifon sites such as Oymaağaç-Kalebaşı, Karatepe, Büyük and Küçük Küllük, Akkaya, Elma Tepesi, Körceviz, Kızkayası, Alacapınar, Civek Tepe, Onhoroz and Aliağa Pınarı with the Early Iron Age pottery of Boğazköy-Büyükkaya, and suggested that they might belong to local peoples under Hittite cultural influence, chiefly the Kaska. Dönmez does not accept this view: he reports that in his own surveys he found no pottery of Early Iron Age character within Amasya province, argues that the form and decoration of the sherds in question are no different from Middle and Late Iron Age examples of the Central Black Sea and Central Anatolia, and maintains that, not being stratified excavation finds, they cannot be dated so finely. The debate is unresolved, and whether the plain stood empty in the first centuries after the Hittites or was kept alive by local communities is a question that only an excavation can settle.
In the 8th century BC the Phrygians settled on top of the Hittite towns, repairing and using the Merzifon fortress and the other Hittite settlements around it; this is why Phrygian traces are seen at Oymaağaç and at the Onhoroz and Küllük mounds. The TDV encyclopaedia, however, writes that the Phrygian, Cimmerian and Scythian attacks that swept the area in the same century destroyed the first fortress. The two accounts do not fully agree: one says the fortress was reused by the Phrygians, the other that it was destroyed. The fortress probably saw destruction and repair in succession, but there is no firm document to show it. The small village site that Dinçol and Yakar found in 1972 at the place called Kışla on the road to Gümüşhacıköy, whose pottery could be dated to the earliest Phrygian phase, shows that in the Phrygian age the secondary routes linking Inner Anatolia to the Black Sea were in use as well.
In the 600s BC Cimmerian and Scythian raids coming from the Caucasus put an end to Phrygian political supremacy. Some Cimmerian tribes are thought to have advanced through Paphlagonia into the Central Black Sea and from there as far as the Eastern Black Sea, and finds belonging to these mounted nomadic warriors are more numerous in Amasya province than in neighbouring regions. Although Scythian dominion around Merzifon and Gümüşhacıköy was very brief, the most striking trace of the period is a kurgan-type grave at the Yedi Pelitler locality in the village of İmirler in Gümüşhacıköy, damaged by illicit digging. When an iron sword, a battle-pick of bronze and iron, part of a bronze horse bit and bronze arrowheads reached the museum by chance, the Amasya Museum excavated the site and uncovered, on a hard clay floor, seven bronze arrowheads together with bones belonging to a human and a horse. According to Dönmez, the person buried here with his horse was a commander of the Eurasian mounted warriors; it is also said that a gold bracelet decorated with animal figures came out of the grave and was sold to an unknown buyer. The finds are now on display in the Amasya Museum. The region then passed under Persian rule, which lasted until the Battle of Issus in 333 BC.
The Kingdom of Pontus
When the Kingdom of Pontus, which made Amasya its capital, was established, Merzifon gained importance as a trading station and military defence point north of the capital. In Strabo's account the palaces, fortresses and cisterns of the Pontic kings were spread across this area; above Amaseia lie high rocky strongholds such as Sagylium, which the kings used for many purposes, and the hot springs of the Phazemonitae, which are very good for health. The fact that almost every mound on the plain has a Hellenistic layer shows that village settlements, from Alıcık to Samadolu, were occupied in this period too; it may be supposed that this plain was one of the granaries of the Pontic kingdom. The Pontic (Mithridatic) period, which lasted about two centuries, was shaken by the wars with Rome. Pontic cities suffered heavily during the campaigns of Pompey and Lucullus; Mithridates VI was defeated by Pompey in 66 BC. In 47 BC, when Caesar defeated King Pharnaces II of Pontus near the village of Bacul between Zile (Zela) and Amasya, the kingdom's hold on the region weakened and the period of Roman rule began.
The only account that connects Merzifon directly to a Pontic king belongs to Hüsameddin. By his reckoning, a king who came to the throne 844 years before the Hijra, that is around 222 BC, and whom he calls Mithridates V in his own sequence, built a fortress west of the old town at Marınca and so brought the passes of Osmancık and Amasya under watch. Known as "Merzepon", this fortress later became "Merzefon" through Arabicisation and then "Merzîfon" when a "ye" replaced the genitive vowel. Hüsameddin reaches this conclusion from the interpretation of the name discussed below; he cites no contemporary ancient source reporting the event. The building of the fortress, the list of kings and the date should therefore be read as the author's own construction. The statement found in local accounts that "in 222 BC Mithridates V founded the fortress of Merzpond" most probably derives from these pages.
The Question of Phazemon and Neapolis
The statement most often repeated in accounts of Merzifon's early history is that the town was founded on the site of ancient Phazemon. It would be wrong to accept this at face value. Strabo defines the region stretching from the territory of Amisos to the Halys as Phazemonitis, and writes that Pompey called it Neapolitis, declaring the village of Phazemon a city and naming it Neapolis. The region is bounded on the north by Gazelonitis and the territory of Amisos, on the west by the Halys, on the east by Phanaroea, and on the remaining side by the territory of Amaseia. The part facing Phanaroea is taken up by Lake Stephane, a lake rich in fish, surrounded by abundant pasture and so large that it resembles a sea. According to Strabo, the rest of Phazemonitis is a treeless country, but fertile in grain. On the shore of the lake stands Icizari, a strong fortress, and beside it a royal palace in ruins, both of them deserted in Strabo's day.
There are three separate views as to which present-day place this description corresponds to. The TDV entry speaks of Merzifon only as a city "estimated" to have been founded on the site of Phazemon; another study accepts that Merzifon could be identified with Phazemon but considers the site near Havza equally likely. The Barrington Atlas, taking as its basis the hot springs of the Phazemonitae, known in antiquity as Thermai Phazemoniton, places Phazemon around Havza, within the present province of Samsun. Research carried out around Vezirköprü in recent years has given weight to a third view: as Akın Temür summarises it, the village of Phazemon mentioned by Strabo is present-day Vezirköprü; the Neapolis founded by Pompey was later renamed Neoklaudiopolis in honour of the emperor Claudius, struck coins under that name from the 2nd century to the early 3rd century, and after the division of the Roman Empire was known as Andrapa. In this view Havza is Thermai, the place reached by the road running south from Neoklaudiopolis, that is, the spa of the region.
The location of the fortress of Sagylium supports this argument. The stronghold that Strabo describes as rising "on a high and steep mountain, like a beak" is sought by researchers in the Vezirköprü area; Olshausen and Biller identified it with Büyükkale, above the neighbourhood of the same name 15 kilometres south of the town. Here, on a rocky ridge some 1,400 metres above sea level, Hellenistic wall foundations, a cistern cut into the rock and the mouth of a stepped tunnel have been recorded. According to Strabo, Pompey, when organising the region administratively, ordered the garrisons demolished and the cisterns of the high fortresses filled with stones so that the Pontic kings and their partisans could not use the area as a refuge; later rulers redistributed the territory among kings. When Arsaces, son of King Pharnaces, proclaimed himself ruler and rebelled, he fled from the plain into the mountains, and there, because the cisterns had been filled with stones, he was taken not by force but by hunger and thirst, and put to death. The scene of the event therefore cannot be the Merzifon plain; it is this mountain fortress near Vezirköprü.
The present appearance of the Merzifon plain fits the grain farming Strabo mentions, but no trace of the great lake or the hot springs is to be found around Merzifon. This difference shows why the identification debate leans towards Havza and Vezirköprü. It is possible that Merzifon was a village in the southern part of Phazemonitis, looking out over the Chiliokomon plain; but this too is a possibility inferred from the sources, and whether the town was a separate settlement with a known name at the time cannot be resolved with present evidence. What is secure, then, is this: when Pompey organised the region after his victory over Mithridates VI around 64 BC, there was a village called Phazemon in Phazemonitis, and he raised it to the status of a city; this city became known as Neapolis. That Merzifon corresponds exactly to this city is an assumption, and local accounts also associate the same name with the village known today as Karşıyaka (Neopolis).
Improvements under Roman Rule
Under Roman rule the recovery of the region gathered pace in the reign of Hadrian. According to local tradition, the emperor, touring Anatolia in the autumn of 131, saw the ruined state of Amasya and its surroundings, visited Merzifon, which had been densely settled in antiquity, and the Roman villages around it, and ordered the old temples repaired and new ones built. A temple is reported to have been built to Zeus Stratios in what is now the village of Karşıyaka (Neopolis); column capitals and the altar inscription belonging to it are displayed in the garden of the Amasya Museum. Part of the Roman temple finds discovered in Merzifon are also in the same museum. With peace established, economic life revived; the walls surrounding the town and the fortress were repaired again, and new quarters were added for the growing population. The recovery of Roman pottery at Alıcık Höyük and Samadolu Höyük shows that the old settlement mounds of the plain were still in use in this period.
The best-known archaeological find of this period in the district comes from the village of Aktarla (Nureni), now attached to Merzifon. In a rescue excavation carried out here by the Amasya Museum in 1994, a decorated limestone sarcophagus with acroteria, dating from the 3rd century AD, was recovered. On three of its sides, to protect the grave, is carved the head of Medusa, believed to turn to stone anyone who looked at her. The Greek inscription on it is a curse: it wishes that those who approach with respect and compassion may receive good from God, but for those who try to seize the tomb or attempt any other evil it says "may this world be untrodden and the seas uncrossable", and asks that they see no good of their children, and especially of their wife, and that their livelihood dwindle. The curse did not work: the skeletons of four people, two of them adults, were found inside the sarcophagus, but no grave goods at all. Museum officials attribute this to the tomb having been robbed already in antiquity. The sarcophagus is now on display in the Amasya Museum and clearly shows that the village was a real settlement in the Roman age, used over more than one generation and home to well-to-do families.
Written sources on Merzifon in this period, by contrast, are very limited; nor is there solid proof that the town's name was reliably recorded as Merzifon in ancient texts. Accounts of the Roman period therefore rest largely on the general condition of Amasya and the surrounding plain. The report of Hadrian's building order, though part of the district's own historical narrative, is not tied to any contemporary inscription or imperial document, and should therefore be read as local information. Pompey's settlement, on the other hand, stands on much firmer ground because it rests on the text of a contemporary writer such as Strabo. The same caveat applies to the temple of Zeus Stratios: the column capitals and the inscribed altar are tangible finds, but as to who built the temple and when, only local tradition is available. Finds that have been excavated and published, such as the Aktarla sarcophagus, carry particular value for this reason.
Eastern Roman Rule
With the division of the Roman Empire into east and west in 395, Merzifon and its surroundings remained within the borders of the Eastern Roman, that is Byzantine, Empire. In the Roman and Byzantine periods the area was attached to Amasya. In 395-396 the Huns who entered Byzantine territory from the Caucasus plundered the town. In the 5th century a name appears in the form Phamidzon (Famizon) in the geographical lexicon of Stephanus of Byzantium; the same name is also found in the spellings Phamadzon and Phameidzon. Classical geographical dictionaries, however, regard this entry as a corrupt spelling of Phazemon; linking Stephanus's name directly to Merzifon therefore depends on the identification described above. Medieval authors and later linguistic studies record the town's name in various forms such as Marzifūn, Mersivan, Marsovan, Marsiwān and Mersuvan; Armenian sources have Marzvan, Middle Persian Merzban, and Greek texts the forms Mersyphon and Merziphounta. This multiplicity suggests that the name was heard and written independently in different languages, that is, that no single official spelling ever took hold. It is generally accepted that the name in time became Famezon, then Mazifon, Marsovan and Mersivan, appearing as Bâzimûn in Seljuk sources, Merzubân in Persian sources and Merzifon in Ottoman documents.
In Byzantium, the continuation of Rome, most of the old settlements survived, and Merzifon was regarded as an important cultural centre in this age. According to local tradition, Umayyad raids at the beginning of the 8th century affected the region too; the town remained under Arab rule for a short time before passing back into Byzantine hands. Bulak Castle, which commands the Merzifon plain and stands near the village of Alıcık on the trade route, is said to have been built to secure the road; there is no firm document giving its exact date of construction. In neighbouring Vezirköprü the traces of this age can be followed more clearly: the former Neoklaudiopolis, now called Andrapa, became a bishopric, and the many Byzantine spolia found in surface surveys show that the town kept its importance, if not to the degree it had in the Roman period. The brick and rubble masonry with khorasan mortar in the upper parts of the walls of Sagylium likewise proves that the Pontic fortresses were repaired and reused in the Roman and Byzantine periods. In Merzifon, however, the tangible works left by the Byzantine period have largely disappeared today; the inner citadel only marks the site of the ancient nucleus.
Views on the Origin of the Name
No firm conclusion has been reached on the origin of the name Merzifon. Most of the explanations in circulation today were first put forward in detail in Hüsameddin's Amasya Tarihi. According to Hüsameddin there is no reliable information on who founded the town or when, but the name offers a clue: in Persian "merz" means frontier, a place of settlement, while "fon" is the Arabicised form of the word "Pon". Combined, they produce Merzifon, meaning "the frontier of Pon, the camp of Pon". From this interpretation the author concludes that the town was a two-thousand-year-old city founded in the Pontic period, but, equating Pontus with the Huns, he also reads the name as "the camp of the Huns"; this reading rests on the general conception of history, visible in other parts of his work as well, that regards the native people of Pontus as Turanian in origin. The TDV entry, for its part, considers doubtful the view that the Persian merz and the word Pont combined to mean "the frontier city of the Pontic state".
Hüsameddin's second explanation starts from the vernacular form "Marsıvan, Marsivan". Relying on the work called Âsâru'l-İbâd, he writes that the name is a corruption of that of a Turkish lord named Barsevinç, and explains the word "bar" as a title given to semi-independent governors. In his account Barsevinç became governor of Amasya 1,340 years before the Hijra, that is, at the beginning of the 8th century BC, and founded a town bearing his own name on the site of the village of Marınca, about two kilometres north-east of the town; the name passed from Barsevinç to Marsevinç and finally to Marınca. Merzifon, by contrast, was first a special camp in the Pontic period and later grew into a town, while the old town of Marınca declined into a village. The statement in local accounts that "in the 700s BC a governor named Barsevinç founded a town on the site of the village of Marınca" comes from these pages. Marınca appears in Ottoman records as the most populous of the villages attached to Merzifon and today bears the name Karamustafapaşa. According to Hüsameddin this was the birthplace of Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha; in 1087 (1676) the pasha enlarged the masjid built by his mother Âbide Hatun into a mosque and added a school beside it. The TDV entry states plainly that the claim that the name derives from Barsevinç of the Hun Turks has no basis whatsoever.
Hüsameddin also reports, and rejects, a third view found in some provincial yearbooks: that Mengücek, ruler of Erzurum, conquered the town and gave it his own name, which in time turned into Merzifon, and that this happened in 480 (1087). The author finds the claim "somewhat strange", pointing out that there is no connection between the words Mengücek and Merzifon, that Mengücek Bey's conquest of Merzifon is not historically known, and that the name Merzifon is recorded before this date. The most interesting piece of evidence, however, is a note on the back leaf of a copy of the Hulâsatü'l-Fetâvâ in the author's possession: recording that he collated the copy in Rebiülâhir 793 (1391), Sa'deddin Muhammed el-Merzifonî introduces himself as Sa'd bin Halil bin Süleyman er-Rûmî, "whose city is known as Merzebân". On this basis Hüsameddin also accepts that the name may be a corruption of the word "Merzebân". The note is a concrete document showing that a spelling of the name matching the Middle Persian form Merzban was used by a local scholar at the end of the 14th century.
Özhan Öztürk, starting from the vernacular form Marsıvan, argues that the name is composed of the Persian marz (frontier) and the Armenian van (town), and thus means "frontier town". None of these views has been proven by documents; what they share is that they tie the name to the idea of a frontier and a crossing place. Considering its position between the Hittite and Kaska lands, its place between Pontus and Paphlagonia and its passing from Byzantium to the Turkish principalities, this interpretation may be said to suit the town's history; that fit, however, does not prove the etymology correct.
The Danishmendid Conquest and the End of the Ancient Age
Byzantine rule collapsed in the region after the Battle of Manzikert (1071). The town was conquered by İltegin Gazi, one of the Danishmendid emirs; Hüsameddin also gives this information on the authority of the Târîh-i Âl-i Dânişmend. His son Hüseyin Gazi, who bore the title Sihâmüddevle, lived here for a long time; the name of the place where he stayed survives today in the Samandolu (Buğdaylı) quarter. Recorded as Samadola in the Ottoman tax registers and as Sehmüddevle in the avârız register of 1642, this name is one of the most lasting traces in the town of the transition to the Middle Ages. The mound that Dönmez identified at the third kilometre of the Merzifon-Gümüşhacıköy road, on the land of the village of Samadolu, has layers running from the Early Bronze Age to the Roman period, which shows that the farm where the Danishmendid emir settled was established beside a very old place of habitation.
The life of Hüseyin Gazi is told in more detail in Hüsameddin's volume of biographies. He was the second son of the Danishmendid commander Nâsırüddevle İltegin Gazi and was born in Amasya to Efrumiye Banu. In the time of Emir İsmail Gazi he became emir of Merzifon, ruled there for a long time and built a mosque, endowing his farm known as "Sehmüddevle" to meet its expenses; the farm later came to be known as the village of Sehmüddevle. In 518 (1124), when the Danishmendid ruler Melik Sungur Gazi settled in Amasya, he declared his allegiance to him, but when he fell out with his brother Hüsâmüddevle Hasan Gazi he went in 522 to the ruler of Damascus, Tâcülmülûk Böri. Under Böri's sons he became emir of Homs; after Nureddin Mahmud Zengi took Damascus he was left in the emirate of Homs and Hama, but when he came under suspicion of seeking independence he was killed by his slave Karatigin in 554 (1159). That the life of a Danishmendid lord who had ruled in Merzifon ended in Syria shows how wide a geography the Danishmendid family moved across in this period.
With the town's passing under Islamic rule, part of the Byzantine buildings are said to have been converted into mosques and madrasas; there is, however, no list showing which buildings were reused in this way. Hüsameddin writes that conditions before the Seljuk period are historically unknown and that, judging by the names and organisation of its quarters, the town's real growth came after AH 670 (1271); as the oldest of the old quarters he points to the Erzincânî quarter, named after Şerefeddin Mehmed Erzincânî, who taught here until AH 768 (1366-67). Byzantium never again ruled Merzifon after the conquest. Though not counted a direct result of Manzikert, this development was part of the process by which Byzantium's frontiers withdrew from the interior of Anatolia. After the Danishmendids the area passed to the Anatolian Seljuks in the time of Kılıç Arslan II, and from this period Merzifon acquired its identity as a Turkish-Islamic town.
Chronology
c. 5500 BC: Traces of Chalcolithic settlement on the mounds around Merzifon.
1700-700 BC: Hittite period; the first fortress guarding the road on the frontier between Hatti and the Kaska country.
8th century BC: The Phrygians use the fortress; Phrygian, Cimmerian and Scythian pressure.
333 BC: Battle of Issus; end of Persian rule.
66 BC: Mithridates VI is defeated by Pompey.
64 BC: Pompey declares Phazemon a city and names it Neapolis.
47 BC: Caesar defeats Pharnaces II; Roman rule begins.
131: Hadrian's building order in the area (according to local tradition).
3rd century: The sarcophagus with Medusa reliefs at the village of Aktarla (Nureni).
395: Division of the Roman Empire; Merzifon remains in Byzantium.
5th century: Stephanus of Byzantium records the name Phamidzon.
Early 8th century: Arab raids and brief Arab rule.
After 1071: The Danishmendid emir İltegin Gazi conquers the town.
1124: Hüseyin Gazi, emir of Merzifon, declares his allegiance to Melik Sungur Gazi.
1159: Hüseyin Gazi is killed at Homs.
1391: The town's name appears as "Merzebân" in a copy of a fatwa collection.
1972: Dinçol and Yakar's surface survey reaching Merzifon.
1994: The Aktarla sarcophagus is recovered in a rescue excavation.
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Hüsameddin, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 1, pp. 397-403 (e-book 1-4, pp. 205-207); vol. 2, pp. 141-142, 158-159 (e-book 1-4, pp. 268, 274); vol. 9, pp. 2-4 (e-book 9-12, p. 12). amasya.bel.tr
- Strabon, Antik Anadolu Coğrafyası (Geographika: XII-XIII-XIV), trans. Adnan Pekman, Istanbul 1993; Geographika XII.3.
Academic studies
- A. M. Dinçol, J. Yakar, "Nerik Şehrinin Yeri Hakkında", Belleten, vol. XXXVIII, no. 152 (1974), pp. 563 ff. belleten.gov.tr
- Şevket Dönmez, "1997-1999 Yılları Yüzey Araştırmalarında İncelenen Amasya İli Demir Çağı Yerleşmeleri", Belleten, vol. LXIX (2005), pp. 467 ff. belleten.gov.tr
Official sources
- Merzifon District Governorship, "Merzifon Tarihçesi".
Other sources
- Mehmet Öz, "Merzifon", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 29, Ankara 2004, pp. 243-245.
- Akın Temür, "Two Pontos Castles in Vezirköprü, Reg. Samsun: Büyükkale (Sagylion) and Küçükkale", Materialy po Arkheologii i Istorii Antichnogo i Srednevekovogo Prichernomor'ya, no. 15 (2023), pp. 121-141.
- Richard Talbert (ed.), Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, Princeton 2000, p. 87.
- "Amasya'da, bin 700 yıllık 'lanetli' lahit dikkat çekti", Ensonhaber (İhlas News Agency). ensonhaber.com
- Özhan Öztürk, Pontus: Antik Çağ'dan Günümüze Karadeniz'in Etnik ve Siyasi Tarihi, Ankara 2011.
Online sources
