Manava (Pamphylia)
Manava was a town of ancient Pamphylia, inhabited during Byzantine times.
Its site is located near Manavgat, in Asiatic Turkey.
Terminology
Manaua is an obscure ethnonym or toponym attested in a limited number of Late Hittite inscriptions and later Late Antique geographical traditions. The exact location, cultural affiliation and historical continuity of the term remain uncertain.The variant spellings of the name derive from orthographic corruption, divergent scribal traditions and later Hellenised forms. A Luwian–Neo-Hittite origin has been proposed, though no consensus exists.
Historical attestations (chronological)
Late Hittite / Iron Age (9th–8th century BC)
- **Kululu Inscription **: Possibly contains the earliest attestation of the name, referring to a community or polity labelled “Manawa/Manaua,” though the reading is debated.
Hellenistic period
- The name is not directly attested; however, later geographers mention archaic ethnonyms believed to derive from earlier Iron Age groups in inland Anatolia.
Roman Imperial period
- References in Pliny and Ptolemy have been suggested but remain controversial and may reflect textual corruption rather than genuine historical data.
Late Antiquity
- Byzantine chroniclers occasionally list Manaua among “forgotten peoples or regions,” with speculative identifications emerging in this period.
Proposed locations
Scholarly hypotheses include:- **Cappadocia** – The most widely accepted possibility, aligned with Iron Age settlement patterns.
- **Lycaonia–Isauria** – Suggested due to onomastic parallels in regional place names.
- **Paphlagonia** – Based on theories of post-Hittite ethnonym shifts toward northern Anatolia.
Etymology
A derivation from Luwian *Mana-wa* has been proposed. Superficial similarity to the ethnonym “Mannaeans” has been rejected due to geographic and cultural incompatibility.Modern scholarly debate
Interpretations of Manaua vary widely, casting it as:- an **ethnic group**,
- a **micro-region**, or
- a **political/tribal unit**