Kütahya's history runs back seven thousand years, and the layers on its ground are unbroken: Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Early Bronze, Hittite, Phrygian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk, Germiyanid and Ottoman. Ancient sources give it as the birthplace of the fabulist Aesop, and the coins of the period show that the city was then called Kotiaeion.
The oldest people to settle this ground were the Phrygians, who migrated into Anatolia at the end of the 12th century BC and took the region after the Hittite state collapsed. In 676 BC the Cimmerians routed the Phrygian king Midas III and became masters of Kütahya and its district. The Lydians broke Cimmerian rule under king Alyattes and took over.
