Amasya is a city in northern Turkey and is the capital of Amasya Province, in the Black Sea Region. In antiquity, Amaseia was a fortified city high on the cliffs above the river. It has a long history as a wealthy provincial capital, producing kings and princes, artists, scientists, poets and thinkers, from the kings of Pontus, through Strabo the geographer.
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Amaseia was captured by the Roman Lucullus in 70 BC from Armenia and was quickly made a free city and administrative center of his new province of Pontus by Pompey. During the years of World War I and the Turkish War of Independence, the Christian inhabitants of Amasya (Armenian and Greek) suffered from atrocities. Many Armenian civilians fleeing the attacks sought refuge at the American missionary school Anatolia College, located in Merzifon outside Amasya. In 1921, Turkish troops closed down the school, and the local population relocated to Thessaloniki after the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Also, in 1921 there was the Amasya trials which were special ad hoc trials, organized by the Turkish National Movement, with the purpose to kill the Greek and to a lesser extent, Armenian representatives of Pontus region under a legal pretext.
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Amasya was home to world-renowned geographer Strabo and Armenians such as Amirdovlat Amasyatsi and painter Leon Tutundjian, among others.
