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| Alanya Pri Reis |
Although first fortified in the
Hellenistic period following the area's conquest by Alexander the Great, the castle rock was likely inhabited under the Hittites and the Persian Empire.Finds in the nearby Kadrini cave indicate occupation during the Paleolithic era as far back as 20,000 BC. A Phoenician language tablet found in the district dates to 625 BC, and the city is specifically mentioned in the 4th-century BC Greek geography manuscript, the periplus of Pseudo-Scylax. Alexander's successors left the area to Ptolemy I Soter after 323 BC. His dynasty maintained loose control over the mainly Isaurian population, and the port became a popular refuge for Mediterranean pirates.The city resisted Antiochus III the Great of the neighboring Seleucid kingdom in 199 BC, but was loyal to the pirate Diodotus Tryphon when he seized the Seleucid crown from 142 to 138 BC. His rival Antiochus VII Sidetes completed work in 137 BC on a new castle and port, begun under Diodotus Tryphon.
