Anatolia the Mediterranean, Greeks in Late Antiquity came to use the name Μικρὰ Ἀσία ("Mikrá Asía") or Asia Minor, meaning "Lesser Asia" to refer to present-day Anatolia. The English-language name "Anatolia" itself derives from the Greek ("") meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise” (comparable to the Latin-derived terms "levant" and "orient"). The precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme (Ἀνατολικόν θέμα) was a "theme" covering the western and central parts of Turkey's present-day Central
Religions of the ancient Near East and Arabian religion. Judaism is a development of Canaanite religion, both Indo-European and Semitic religions influenced the ancient Greek religion, and Zoroastrianism was a product of ancient Indo-Iranian religion. In turn these religious traditions strongly influenced the later monotheistic religions of Christianity, Mandeanism, Sabianism, Gnosticism, Islam, and Manicheanism, which inherited their monotheism from Judaism and Zoroastrianism. The history of the ancient Near East spans more than two millennia, from the Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, in the region now known as the Middle East, centered on the Fertile Crescent. There was much cultural contact, so that it is