Hear
Visitors to Türkiye are always captivated by its magnificent historical sites.
From the towering columns of the Library of Celsus in Ephesus to the colossal heads of Mount Nemrut, the country almost collapsed under the weight of its historical splendor.
But there is one ancient city (recently crowned Turkey’s 20th UNESCO World Heritage Site) that announces its importance with much less fanfare.
His name is Gordiothe ancient capital of the Iron Age kingdom of Phrygia, and is at least 4,500 years old.
Located about 90 kilometers southwest of Ankara, on an arid, windswept plain, Gordion looks more like a quarry or the collapsed crater of an extinct volcano than a once-powerful city.
A huge mound, the buried remains of a 135,000 m² citadel, rises gently from the surrounding landscape with a sandy path leading to the top.
From there, you can look down into the open excavations and make out the outlines of collapsed walls, marking the traces of old mansions and warehouses like an estate agent’s blueprint.
Across the horizon, dozens of smaller mounds dot the fields like giant prehistoric mole burrows.
Only the monumental gate, surrounded by enormous stone walls 10 meters high, gives any indication that It was once the capital of one of the largest kingdoms of the Iron Age.
“Many people haven’t heard of the Phrygians, but between approximately the 9th and 7th centuries BC they dominated Asia Minor, which is now Turkey,” explained Brian Rose, a professor of archeology at the University of Pennsylvania, who has led excavations at Gordion. since 2007.
“Gordio is located at the intersection of the main east-west trade routes: to the east were the empires of Assyria, Babylon and the Hittites, and to the west were Greece and Lydia. The Phrygians were able to take advantage of this strategic location and became rich and powerful.”
But while the name Phrygia may not be familiar to you, there is one person associated with this city that many may recognize.
Archaeologists believe Gordio was ruled by the legendary King Midas, “the man of the golden touch.”.
Midas is a traditional moral tale: The king did a favor to the god Dionysus and in exchange he was granted a wish.
Instead of wanting something useful, the greedy monarch asked that everything he touched be turned into gold.
He immediately realized his mistake: the food solidified before he could eat it, and when he hugged his daughter, she turned into a statue.
The moral of the story is well known: be careful what you wish for.
“The story is not literally true,” said professor Lynn Roller of the University of California, Davis, who has studied Gordio since 1979.
“But many myths have a core of historical accuracy, although they become distorted as they are retold over the centuries.”
But who was Midas and where did the idea of the “golden touch” come from?
To separate fact from fiction, archaeologists first had to prove that King Midas was a real person..
The easiest way to do this was by consulting ancient texts.
“A Phrygian king named Midas is mentioned in several ancient sources, including the annals of the Assyrian ruler Sargon II,” Roller explained.
“The Assyrians considered him a powerful king and an important rival in their efforts to expand their territory during the 8th century BC.”
More evidence of Midas’ existence can be found about two hours west of Gordio, at a place called Yazılıkaya, more commonly known as “Midas City.”
Rarely visited by tourists, it is a site of spectacular beauty on a hilltop where volcanic formations jut out from the landscape.
It’s riddled with ancient caves and tombs, and 3,000-year-old stairs lead to echoing tunnels hand-carved from solid rock.
But the most spectacular of all the monuments here is the magnificent façade of a temple, 17 meters high, carved into a rock wall some 3,000 years ago.
At the top, an inscription in ancient Phrygian says: “Ates […] has dedicated [esto] to Midas, leader of the army and ruler.”.
Proof, written in stone, that Midas was a real king, important enough for the powerful local lord Ates to dedicate his temple to him.
“Since Midas was a powerful king, it is very likely that he is buried somewhere in Gordio,” Rose said.
“Finding his tomb would be a discovery of enormous importance. And the obvious place to look was one of the mounds surrounding the city.”
More than 125 tumuli surround Gordio and date from the 9th to the 6th century BC
These gigantic earthworks, which look like alien mounds in an otherwise flat landscape, were built to protect the tombs of important people from tomb robbers, much like the Egyptian pyramids.
The largest, a steep peak now overgrown with weeds and yellow grass, is 53 meters high, making it the second largest mound in Turkey.
Experts estimate that it took 1,000 people and up to two years to build.
“Early archaeologists called it ‘Midas Mound’ because they thought Midas must have been buried inside it. But they didn’t know for sure”Rose said.
“They had to be incredibly careful when they dug it up because it’s just a big pile of compacted dirt. If you do it wrong, everything can collapse on top of you.”
In 1957, working with a team of Turkish coal miners, experts carefully excavated a tunnel into the mound.
Inside, they found a large burial chamber built from pine and juniper logs, perfectly preserved within its airtight cocoon for almost 3,000 years.
Today, visitors can follow that same excavation tunnel deep into the mound to visit the tomb, the oldest surviving wooden building in the world.
It is so fragile that it is now supported by beams and protected by a metal fence, but that does not mean that you will not be left open-mouthed when you see that ancient structure that was hidden underground for so long, like a Turkish Pompeii, but almost 800 years older.
The occupant of the tomb was a man of about 60 years old, lying on a bed and surrounded by bronze jars, decorated bowls and jugs, carved wooden furniture, fragments of fine fabrics and other precious offerings befitting the burial of a king.
But was it Midas? Early in the first decade of this millennium, Gordio archaeologists turned to dendrochronology (tree ring dating) for answers.
But when they analyzed the logs used to build the burial chamber, they ran into a problem.
“The wood dates to around 740 BC, but according to Assyrian records, Midas was still alive in 709 BC, 31 years later,” Rose revealed.
“This tomb cannot belong to Midas.”
So who is the man in the tomb?
From the lavish burial he is clearly a king, but which one?
The date of your death can only mean one thing.
“He probably died the year Midas came to power,” Rose said.
“So, we’re pretty sure he must be Midas’s father, Gordias.”
Like his son, Gordías is also legendary.
The story goes that when the previous king died without an heir, the townspeople asked the oracle for help.
He declared that the next man who entered the city driving an ox cart should be made king..
Moments later, Gordias, a farmer, arrived in town. He was crowned and the name of the city was changed to Gordius in his honor.
To celebrate, his chariot was displayed in a temple, tied with an elaborate knot: the famous Gordian Knot.
Legend said that any man who could untie the knot would rule Asia.
Over the years, many people tried, but they all failed.
“We haven’t found any evidence of a carriage or a knot,” Rose said.
“But several ancient Greek historians report that in 333 BC Alexander the Great came here on his way to defeat the Persian army.
“When faced with the knot, he simply unsheathed his sword and cut it.”
“Therefore, we believe that the knot really existed. And later Alexander conquered large areas of Asia, fulfilling the prophecy.”
But what about the “golden touch”? Where does this idea come from?
Surprisingly, archaeologists have not found much gold among the 40,000 artifacts discovered so far at Gordio: some jewelry, some gold coins and an exquisitely gilded carving of a sphinx.
If there was gold in the city, it may have been looted over the centuries, or perhaps it is still hidden within the 85 burial mounds yet to be excavated.
But archaeologists have another theory about the origin of the myth.
“We think it’s a metaphor,” Roller explained.
“Under the rule of Midas, Gordio became rich and powerful. The story became a metaphor for a person of great wealth.
“To this day, when we say someone has the ‘golden touch’ we mean a person who achieves wealth or success with ease.
“King Midas seems to have had that gift.”.
*By Bella Falk
BBC World
