Question: Who founded the first major empire in 13th century BC?
About the article "Turkey", section "Prehistory of Anatolia and Eastern Thrace".

Candidate passages:
History of imperialism.
Early empires.
The Akkadian Empire of Sargon the Great (24th century BC), was an early large empire.
In the 15th century BC, the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, ruled by Thutmose III, was ancient Africa's major force upon incorporating Nubia and the ancient city-states of the Levant.
The first empire comparable to Rome in organization was the Assyrian empire (2000–612 BC).
The Median Empire was the first empire on the territory of Persia.
By the 6th century BC, after having allied with the Babylonians to defeat the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Medes were able to establish their own empire, the largest of its day, lasting for about sixty years.
The successful, extensive, and multi-cultural empire that was the Persian Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC) absorbed Mesopotamia, Egypt, parts of Greece, Thrace, the Middle East, and much of Central Asia and Pakistan, until it was overthrown and replaced by the short-lived empire of Alexander the Great.
The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive and powerful empire in ancient India, ruled by the Mauryan dynasty from 321 to 185 BC.
The Empire was founded in 322 BC by Chandragupta Maurya who rapidly expanded his power westwards across central and western India, taking advantage of the disruptions of local powers in the wake of the withdrawal westward by Alexander the Great.
By 320 BC, the empire had fully occupied past northwestern India as well as defeating and conquering the satraps left by Alexander.
It has been estimated that the Maurya Dynasty controlled an unprecedented one-third of the world's entire economy, was home to one-third of the world's population at the time (an estimated 50 million out of 150 million humans), contained the world's largest city of the time (Pataliputra, estimated to be larger than Rome under Emperor Trajan) and according to Megasthenes, the empire wielded a military of 600,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry, and 9,000 war elephants. 
Early Georgian kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia.
A second Georgian tribal union emerged in the 13th century BC on the Black Sea coast under the Kingdom of Colchis in western Georgia.
The kingdom of Colchis, which existed from the 6th to the 1st centuries BCE is regarded as the first early Georgian state formation and the term "Colchians" was used as the collective term for early Georgian-Kartvelian tribes such as Mingrelians, Lazs and Chans who populated the eastern coast of the black sea.
According to the scholar of the Caucasian studies Cyril Toumanoff:The ancient Greeks knew of Colchis, and it featured in the Greek legend of Jason and the Argonauts, who travelled there in search of the Golden Fleece.
Starting around 2000 BC, northwestern Colchis was inhabited by the Svan and Zan peoples of the Kartvelian tribes.
Another important ethnic element of ancient Colchis were Greeks who between 1000 and 550 BC established many trading colonies in the coastal area, among them Naessus, Pitiys, Dioscurias, Guenos, Phasis (modern Poti), Apsaros, and Rhizos (modern Rize in Turkey).
In the eastern part of Georgia there was a struggle for the leadership among the various Georgian confederations during the 6th–4th centuries BC, which was finally won by the Kartlian tribes from the region of Mtskheta.
According to the Georgian tradition, the Kingdom of Kartli (known as Iberia in the Greek-Roman literature) was founded around 300 BC by Parnavaz I, the first ruler of the Parnavazid dynasty.
Between 653 and 333 BC, both Colchis and Iberia survived successive invasions by the Median Empire, and later the Persian Empire.
At the end of the 4th century BC southern Iberia witnessed the invading armies of Alexander the Great, who established a vast Greco-Macedonian empire to the south of the Caucasus.
Neither Iberia nor Colchis was incorporated into the empire of Alexander or any of the successor Hellenistic states of the Middle East.
However, the culture of ancient Greece still had a considerable influence on the region, and Greek was widely spoken in the cities of Colchis.
In Iberia Greek influence was less noticeable and Aramaic was widely spoken.
Between the early 2nd century BC and the late 2nd century AD both Colchis and Iberia, together with the neighboring countries, became an arena of long and devastating conflicts between major and local powers such as Rome, Armenia and the short-lived Kingdom of Pontus.
In 189 BC, the rapidly growing Kingdom of Armenia took over more than half of Iberia, conquering the southern and southeastern provinces of Gogarene, Taokhia and Genyokhia, as well as some other territories.
Between 120 and 63 BC, Armenia's ally Mithridate VI Eupator of Pontus conquered all of Colchis and incorporated it into his kingdom, embracing almost all of Asia Minor as well as the eastern and northern Black Sea coastal areas. 
  3rd century BC - Yksm settled by Punics.
146 BC - Icosium became part of the Roman Empire.
5th century AD - Vandals in power.
7th century AD - Arabs in power.
944 - Algiers founded by Bologhine ibn Ziri.
1097 - Great Mosque of Algiers built.
1014 - Hammadids in power.
1159 - Almohades in power.
13th century - Ziyanid sultans of the Kingdom of Tlemcen in power.  
"See also:" 14th century BC in architecture, other events of the 13th century BC, 12th century BC in architecture and the architecture timeline. 
The ruins of Ebla, near Idlib in northern Syria, were discovered and excavated in 1975.
Ebla appears to have been an East Semitic speaking city-state founded around 3000 BC.
At its zenith, from about 2500 to 2400 BC, it may have controlled an empire reaching north to Anatolia, east to Mesopotamia and south to the Red Sea.
Ebla traded with the Mesopotamian states of Sumer Akkad and Assyria, as well as with peoples to the northwest.
Gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Ebla's contact with Egypt.
Scholars believe the language of Ebla was closely related to the fellow East Semitic Akkadian language of Mesopotamia and to be among the oldest known written languages.
Ebla was probably conquered by Sargon of Akkad around 2330 BC.
The city re-emerged, as the part of the nation of the Northwest Semitic speaking Amorites, a few centuries later, and flourished through the early second millennium BC until conquered by the Indo-European Hittites.
From the third millennium BC, Syria was occupied successively by Sumerians, Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians and Babylonians.
The region was fought over by the rival empires of the Hittites, Egyptians, Assyrians and Mitanni between the 15th and 13th centuries BC, with the Middle Assyrian Empire eventually left controlling Syria.
When the Middle Assyrian Empire began to deteriorate in the late 11th century BC, Canaanites and Phoenicians, came to the fore and occupied the coast, and Arameans supplanted the Amorites in the interior, as part of the general disruptions and exchanges associated with the Bronze Age Collapse and the Sea Peoples.
From the 10th century BC the Neo-Assyrian Empire arose, and Syria was ruled by Assyria for the next three centuries, until the late 7th century BC.
After this empire finally collapsed, Mesopotamian dominance continued for a time with the short lived Neo-Babylonian Empire, which ruled the region for 70 or so years.
Eventually, in 539 BC, the Persians took Syria as part of their empire.
This dominion ended with the conquests of the Macedonian Greek king, Alexander the Great in 333-332 BC.
Syria was then incorporated into the Seleucid Empire.
The capital of this Empire (founded in 312 BC) was situated at Antioch, then a part of historical Syria, but just inside the Turkish border today.
The Roman general Pompey the Great captured Antioch in 64 BC, turning Syria into a Roman province.
The city of Antioch was the third largest city in the Roman Empire, after Rome and Alexandria.
With an estimated population of 500,000 at its peak, Antioch was one of the major centers of trade and industry in the ancient world.
The largely Aramaic speaking population of Syria during the heyday of the empire was probably not exceeded again until the 19th century.
Syria's large and prosperous population made it one of the most important Roman provinces, particularly during the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE.
Syria is significant in the history of Christianity; Paul the Apostle was converted on the Road to Damascus and emerged as a significant figure in the Christian Church at Antioch, from where he set off on many of his missionary journeys.
()The Roman emperor Elagabalus (218-222) was half-Aramean, and his family held hereditary rights to the high priesthood of the sun god El-Gabal at Emesa, (modern Homs) in Syria.
He was succeeded by his cousin Alexander Severus (222 to 235) who was also from Syria.
Another Roman emperor who was Syrian was Philip the Arab (Marcus Julius Philippus), emperor from 244 to 249.
Palmyra, a wealthy and powerful indigenous Aramean state arose in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, and for a short time it was the center of the Palmyrene Empire, which briefly rivalled Rome.
With the decline of the empire in the west, Syria became part of the East Roman, or Byzantine, Empire in 395.