The Battle of Myriokephalon (1176)

About a hundred years after Manzikert, the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos set out on a great campaign to win back Anatolia, aiming at the Seljuk capital, Konya. In September 1176 the Byzantine army entered a narrow mountain pass near the fortress of Myriokephalon.

Sultan Kilij Arslan II had hidden his forces on both sides of the pass. As the long Byzantine column moved through it like a caravan, the Seljuks attacked. Much of the army and its siege engines were lost, and the emperor had to ask for peace.

Manuel himself compared the defeat to Manzikert. After Myriokephalon Byzantium gave up hope of retaking inner Anatolia, and from this period European sources began to call Anatolia "Turchia", the land of the Turks.