Sultanate of Rum
The Battle of Manzikert was fought near the town in August 1071. In one of the most decisive defeats in Byzantine history, the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan defeated and captured Emperor Romanus Diogenes, which led to the ethnic and religious transformation of Armenia and Anatolia and the establishment of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum and later the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey. The Seljuks pillaged Manzikert itself, killed much of its population and burned the city to the ground. It was successively part of Ahlatshahs (their rule was briefly interrupted by the Kingdom of Georgia), Ayyubids, Sultanate of Rum, Ilkhanids, Karakoyunlu, Timurids, Akkoyunlu and Safavids before Ottoman rule.