Gordion
Gordion was the capital city of ancient Phrygia. It was located at the site of modern Yassıhüyük, about southwest of Ankara, in the immediate vicinity of Polatlı district. Gordion's location at the confluence of the Sakarya and Porsuk rivers gave it a strategic location with control over fertile land. Gordion lies where the ancient road between Lydia and Assyria/Babylonia crossed the Sangarius river. Occupation at the site is attested from the Early Bronze Age continuously until the 4th century CE and again in the 13th and 14th centuries CE. The Citadel Mound at Gordion is approximately 13.5 hectares in size, and at its height habitation extended beyond this in an area approximately 100 hectares in size. Gordion is the type site of Phrygian civilization, and its well-preserved destruction level of ca. 800 BCE is a chronological linchpin in the region. The long tradition of tumuli at the site is an important record of elite monumentality and burial practice during the Iron Age.
History of occupation
In antiquity, the Sakarya river flowed on the east side of the Citadel Mound, just beyond the Küçük Höyük fort. Its course changed several times, ultimately moving to the west side of the mound, where it is now. This was a relatively recent change, most likely occurring during the 19th century.| Period Name | Approximate Dates |
| Early Bronze Age | 3000-2000 BCE |
| Middle Bronze Age | 2000-1600 BCE |
| Late Bronze Age | 1600-1200 BCE |
| Early Iron Age | 1200-900 BCE |
| Early Phrygian Period | 900-800 BCE |
| Middle Phrygian Period | 800-540 BCE |
| Late Phrygian Period | 540-330 BCE |
| Hellenistic Period | 330-1st century BCE |
| Roman | 1st-5th century CE |
| Medieval | 13th-14th century CE |
| Modern Gordion | 1920s-Present |
Bronze Age
Gordion was inhabited from at least the Early Bronze Age, ca. 2300 BCE. By the end of this period it displayed ceramic commonalities with communities as far west as the Troad and as far east as Cilicia.During the Middle Bronze Age, Gordion came under the influence of the Hittites, with administrative seals evident at the site. There is an extensive necropolis attested on the Northeast Ridge, with burials of the MH III-IV periods.
Late Bronze Age Gordion was part of the Hittite Empire and located at the western edge of its heartland.
Early Iron Age
There is a cultural change at Gordion in the Early Iron Age, with distinct differences from the Late Bronze Age in regard to architecture and ceramics. Ceramic and linguistic links with southeastern Europe point to an influx of Balkan migrants at this time, possibly the Brygians.Early Phrygian period
There were several monumental construction projects on the citadel during the 10th and 9th centuries, the Early Phrygian period, resulting in a circuit wall around the Citadel Mound with an extensive gate complex. The East Citadel Gate provided both increased defense and a projection of power; it is still preserved to a height of ten meters, making it the best preserved example in Anatolia. Around the same time, ca. 850 BCE, Tumulus W was constructed, the first known example of a tumulus burial in Anatolia and a marker of elite prominence at Gordion. Beyond the East Citadel Gate, a series of elite buildings occupied the eastern side of the mound. These included several megaron-plan buildings and the large interconnected Terrace Building Complex. The Megarons at Gordion likely served an administrative function, with the largest, Megaron 3, perhaps serving as an audience hall. The Megarons include several pebble mosaic floors with elaborate geometric designs, among the earliest known examples of their type. The Terrace Building, a complex of eight interconnected buildings stretching over one hundred meters in length, was a locus of grinding, cooking, and weaving, as well as storage. The remains of the Early Phrygian period were preserved due to a conflagration on the eastern side of the Citadel Mound, likely dating to ca. 800 BCE. This destruction level and the subsequent rebuilding of the site above it preserved the architecture and many of the finds from the Early Phrygian period. The Early Phrygian period at the site is thus better understood than the Middle Phrygian.Early Phrygian Destruction Level
There is ample evidence of widespread burning of the eastern portion of the Citadel Mound of Gordion, in a level referred to by the initial excavator, Rodney S. Young, as the Destruction Level. This event, and the subsequent deposition of up to five meters of clay above the burnt level, sealed and preserved many buildings and hundreds of objects from the Early Phrygian phase, providing an astonishing insight into the character of the elite district of an Iron Age citadel, unique in Anatolian archaeology. As such, the Early Phrygian Destruction Level provides well-dated comparative material for other sites in the region and constitutes a key fixed point in Central Anatolian chronology.Archaeologists at first interpreted the Destruction Level as the remains of a Cimmerian attack, ca. 700 BCE, an event referred to much later by Strabo and Eusebius as resulting in the death of King Midas. Initial radiocarbon data analyzed by Young cast some doubt on this interpretation, but the date of 700 BCE was widely used. Beginning in 2000, a renewed program of radiocarbon dating, dendrochronological analysis, and a closer examination of the objects in the Destruction Level began. Three factors were of particular importance: the establishment of the date of Tumulus MM at ca. 740 BCE based on dendrochronology; the comparison of Destruction Level objects with those in Tumulus MM and other independently dated assemblages in the Gordion tumuli; and the study of well-known 8th century Greek ceramics in post-Destruction Level contexts. Taken altogether, this research indicated that the date of the conflagration was approximately one hundred years earlier than previously thought, ca. 800 BCE.
Initial criticism of the radiocarbon analysis focused on the preliminary publication of five samples but was subsequently refuted by the publication of fifteen more short-lived samples, each the average of dozens of barley, lentil, and flax seeds from the Destruction Level. These all indicated a range ca. 840-795 BCE, most likely between 830/815 and 810/800 BCE, and were in no way compatible with a ca. 700 BCE date, even with extreme adjustments to the outliers within the data. Consequently, the fire can no longer be associated with a Cimmerian incursion and was probably accidental in nature, with no indications of a military attack. A date of ca. 800 BCE for the Early Phrygian Destruction Level has been widely accepted by scholars working throughout Central Anatolia, with objections voiced only by Muscarella and Keenan.
Middle Phrygian Period
The ca. 800 BCE destruction level marks the change from the Early Phrygian period to the Middle Phrygian. After the fire, the inhabitants of Gordion completed a massive construction program on the Citadel Mound that included the laying of up to five meters of clay to raise the height of the mound. The citadel was rebuilt on a largely similar plan, a process of monumentality that required an immense amount of labor and planning. The fortifications at Gordion at this time expanded to include a pair of forts to the north and south of the Citadel Mound connected by a circuit wall that enclosed an area over twenty-five hectares, the Lower Town. Beyond the Lower Town, settlement continued in the Outer Town, protected by a further wall and ditch. Settlement stretched onto the Northeast Ridge, where a series of houses were destroyed in an attack by an unknown enemy around 700 BCE. During the Middle Phrygian period, Gordion grew to its largest size, encompassing an area of settlement of approximately one hundred hectares. At this time the political influence of Phrygia in Anatolia increased substantially. During the 9th and 8th centuries BCE, the city grew into the capital of a kingdom that controlled much of Asia Minor west of the river Halys. In the course of the 6th century BCE, the kingdom of Lydia, Phrygia's neighbor to the southwest, began to exert influence within Anatolia, likely at the expense of Phrygian control. The incursion of Cyrus the Great and the Achaemenid Empire into Anatolia, beginning in 546 BCE, spelled the end of any Lydian control and of Phrygian autonomy at Gordion.King Midas
The most famous king of Phrygia was Midas, who reigned during the Middle Phrygian period at Gordion. He was likely on the throne at Gordion by ca. 740 BCE, based on the completion of Tumulus MM around that time. Contemporary Assyrian sources dating between ca. 718 and 709 BCE call him Mit-ta-a. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, King Midas was the first foreigner to make an offering at the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, dedicating the throne from which he gave judgment. During his reign, according to Strabo, the nomadic Cimmerians invaded Asia Minor, and in 710/709 BCE, Midas was forced to ask for help from the Assyrian king Sargon II. In Strabo's account, King Midas committed suicide by drinking bull's blood when the Cimmerians overran the city.Tumuli
There are over one hundred tumuli in the vicinity of Gordion, dating from the 9th to the 6th centuries BCE. The largest of these burial mounds have traditionally been associated with kings, especially Tumulus MM. There are two main necropoleis, the Northeast Ridge and the South Ridge. Tumulus W at Gordion, dating to ca. 850 BCE, is the earliest known at the site and the first known anywhere in Anatolia. Tumuli are associated with inhumation burials at Gordion until the late 7th century, when cremation began at the site. The two traditions then coexisted through the 6th century BCE.Tumulus MM
Tumulus MM, the Great Tumulus, is the largest burial mound at Gordion, standing over fifty meters high today, with a diameter of about three hundred meters. It was built ca. 740 BCE, and at that time was the largest tumulus in Anatolia, only surpassed ca. 200 years later by the Tumulus of Alyattes in Lydia. Tumulus MM was excavated in 1957 by Young's team, revealing the remains of the royal occupant, resting on purple and golden textiles in an open log coffin, surrounded by a vast array of magnificent objects. The burial goods included pottery and bronze vessels containing organic residues, bronze fibulae, leather belts with bronze attachments, and an extraordinary collection of carved and inlaid wooden furniture, exceptional for its state of preservation. The Tumulus MM funeral ceremony has been reconstructed, and scientists have determined that the guests at the banquet ate lamb or goat stew and drank a mixed fermented beverage. Now generally assumed to be the tomb of Midas' father Gordias, it was probably the first monumental project of Midas after his accession.Late Phrygian Period
Following the campaigns of Cyrus the Great in Anatolia in the 540s BCE, Gordion became part of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. There is extensive evidence for the Persian siege of 546 BCE at Gordion, mainly associated with the fort at Küçük Höyük. The Persian attackers built a large siege ramp to assault the fortress, still visible today. After its conquest, Gordion became part of the satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia, which had Daskyleion on the Sea of Marmara, not Gordion, as its capital. Despite its relegation in status, Gordion initially continued to prosper under the Achaemenids, with tumulus burials and monumental buildings maintained through the 6th century. Around 500 BCE, a semi-subterranean structure, the Painted House, was added to the east side of the Citadel Mound. It featured a program of wall frescoes showing the procession of women. It is perhaps associated with cultic activity, although the nature of this is uncertain.The 4th century BCE at Gordion began with the combination of an earthquake and the attack of the Spartan king Agesilaos. The subsequent century saw an absence of monumental buildings on the Citadel Mound, and, in fact, stone from many of the earlier structures was used for smaller buildings elsewhere around the site.