First inhabitants of Istanbul are dating back to second millennia BC, they were settled on the Asian side of the city. Its first name comes from Megara king Byzas who took his colonists here in the 7th century BC to establish a colony named Byzantium, the Greek name for a city on the Bosphorus. Byzas chose this spot after consulting an oracle of Delphi who told him to settle across from the “land of the blind”. Indeed, Byzas believed that earlier settlers must have been “blind” for overlooking this superb location at the entrance of the Bosphorus strait, only access to the Black Sea.
