Anatolia
Near the legendary city of Byzantium is one of the oldest continually inhabited regions in the world. The earliest major empire in the area was that of the Hittites, from the 18th through the 13th century BC. Subsequently, Coastal Anatolia (IONIA) was settled by Greeks. The entire area was overrun by the Persians during the 6th and 5th centuries BC and fell to Alexander the Great in 334 BC. In AD 324, the Roman Emperor Constantine I chose Constantinople, now Istanbul, as the capital of the Roman Empire. It subsequently became the capital of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire. The central portion of this ancient land has the ideal climate for growing Harvest Bay TenderFruits with its cold snowy winters and hot dry summers. Its people have been producing these sweet juicy treats for millennia. In fact, archaeologists have recently discovered the remains of a fig orchard dating back over ten thousand years.