Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Angora

ANGORA, or Enguri, the ancient Ancyra, a city of Turkey in Asia, capital of the vilayet of the same name, situated upon a steep hill, near a small stream, which flows into the Angara, a tributary of the Sakaria or Sangariuo, about 220 miles E.S.E. of Constantinople. The modern town is not well built, its streets being narrow and many of its houses of mud; but there are a great many fine remains of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine architecture, the most remarkable of which is a temple of white marble, erected by the inhabitants in honour of Augustus. On the walls of this temple is the famous Monumentum Ancyranum, an inscription in Greek and Latin, detailing the principal events in the life of the emperor, a great part of which is still legible. Angora has long been celebrated for its goats, whose soft silky hair, about 8 inches long, forms the chief article of export from the town. The fineness of the hair may perhaps be ascribed to some peculiarity in the atmosphere, for it is remarkable that the cats, dogs, and other animals of the country are to a certain extent affected in the same way as the goats, and that they all lose much of their distinctive beauty when taken from their nativo districts. The other exports are goat and cat skins, gum, wax, honey, yellow berries, and madder root, while the import of British and other European goods is considerable, although the trade is almost entirely in the hands of Armenians. The population is variously estimated at from 20,000 to 60,000. Ancyra originally belonged to Phrygia, and afterwards became the chief town of the Tectosages, one of the three Gallic tribes that settled in Galatia, about 277 B.C. In 189 B.C., Galatiawas subdued by Manlius, and in 25 B.C. it was formally made a Roman province, of which Ancyra was the capital. Ancyra was the seat of one of the earliest Christian churches, founded probably by the apostle Paul, and councils were held in the town in 314 and 358 A.D. In 1402 a great battle was fought in the vicinity of Ancyra, in which the Turkish sultan Bajazet was defeated and made prisoner by Tamer lane, the Tartar conqueror. In 1415 it was recovered by the Turks under Mahomet I., and since that period has belonged to the Ottoman empire.