Rûm Eyalet

[3] Rûm was the old Seljuk Turkish designation for Anatolia, referring to the Eastern Roman Empire, and in European texts as late as the 19th-century the word Rûm (or Roum) was used to denote the whole of central Anatolia, not just the smaller area comprising the Ottoman province (see Sultanate of Rum).

[citation needed] In the 14th century several autonomous towns (Amasya, Tokat, Sivas) were established, despite the continued Seljukid-Mongol rule in central Asia Minor.

[4] When the Ilkhanid ruler Ebu Said died in 1335, administration of Asia Minor was entrusted to his former governor Eretna Bey, a Uyghur.

[4] He captured the area around Sivas-Kayseri, eventually establishing an emirate of Eretna, which grew stronger during the rule of his son, Mehmed Bey.

[4] His principality managed to resist interference in central Anatolia from both the Akkoyunlus and the Ottomans until it collapsed with his death in 1398.

East Anatolian rug (detail), from the Şarkişla-Sivas region. Made c. 1800.