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An inscription bearing the name of the ancient city was found at the excavation site in Gordion, the capital of the Phrygians.In 1900, a 3-month excavation was carried out in the ancient city, which was discovered by the brothers Alfred and Gustav Körte during the construction of the Berlin-Istanbul-Baghdad railway line in the Polatlı district of Ankara.Although the Körte brothers determined that the capital of the ancient city of Phrygian was Gordion, no information confirming this could be found so far.The excavations, which were restarted in 1950 after a long break, are now being carried out by the team led...

For example, a 17th-century Persian textile contains fibers of silk thread that were individually wrapped with thin strips of metal. And the microstructure of a needle from Cyprus retains the touch of the person who shaped it, in traces of dark corrosion that emerged as the needle was rotated and hammered. In another striking image, a bit of basalt glitters in a ceramic roof tile from Gordion, a site in Turkey that was inhabited from at least 2300 B.C., during the early Bronze Age (the tile dates to the first half of the sixth century B.C.). Basalt, a volcanic rock,...

"The longest chronology in the world stretches back 12,000 years. But in the Mediterranean, the problem is that we don't have a full, continuous record going back to the time of Thera," Pearson said. "We have recorded the last 2,000 years very well, but then there's a gap. We have tree rings from earlier periods, but we don't know exactly which dates the rings correspond to. This is what's called a 'floating chronology.'" Filling this gap could help pin down the Thera eruption date and paint a climatic backdrop for the various civilizations that rose and fell during the Bronze...

Everyone knows the story of King Midas and his golden touch. In Greco-Roman mythology, the Phrygian king Midas was offered anything he wished from Bacchus, the god of wine, for showing kindness to Bacchus's teacher, Silenus. Midas wished that everything he touched would turn to gold. While it amazed Midas that everything he then touched became gold -- from a twig to a husk of corn -- he soon discovered just how reckless his request was, for he could not eat or drink anything but gold (Ovid, Metamorphoses, XI:85-145). The historical King Midas inspired this character in Classical mythology. King...

A sculpture found in Greece in 1939 may have been part of King Midas' lost throne, an archaeologist has said. The 23cm-tall ivory sculpture, known to scholars as The Lion Tamer, has puzzled historians of classical Greece since its discovery... Keith DeVries, of the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, said there are signs that it once adorned Midas' royal throne... Mr DeVries said the sculpture appears to be Phrygian and to have been produced around the time that Midas was alive... According to Mr DeVries, Midas donated his throne as a gift to Delphi, where it was...

Archaeologists rewrite timeline of Bronze and Iron Ages, including early appearance of alphabet FOR RELEASE: Dec. 19, 2001 Contact: Blaine P. Friedlander Jr. Office: 607-255-3290 E-Mail: bpf2@cornell.edu ITHACA, N.Y. -- Using information gleaned from the sun's solar cycles and tree rings, archaeologists are rewriting the timeline of the Bronze and Iron Ages. The research dates certain artifacts of the ancient eastern Mediterranean decades earlier than previously thought. And it places an early appearance of the alphabet outside Phoenicia at around 740 B.C. Writing in two articles in the forthcoming issue of the journal Science (Dec. 21), archaeologists from Cornell University ...

Patrick McGovern "The site is very rich archeologically, has been excavated for the last 50 years by the University of Pennsylvania Museum. It has a large palace area with rooms, some of which are thought to have been kitchens for making the food for the palace, with jars of barley and other goods. Also, it has a whole series of tombs in which the burial was done in a special wooden chamber beneath a very large mound. It's almost as if you cut it yesterday and put the structure together. It is the earliest intact human building made of...

The modern diners sitting before Sams were about to eat the first reconstruction of that feast—a celebration that had remained undiscovered for decades after archaeologist Rodney S. Young first excavated Midas' tomb in 1957. Ancient Roman, Greek, or even Maya banquets had been re-created previously, but generally from texts and ancient recipes. Not so with the Midas feast. "It's the first time that somebody tried to do it working just from the chemical evidence," says Patrick E. McGovern, the museum's molecular archaeologist who led the analyses. In other words, from the pan scrapings.

In storybook histories, the ancient city of Gordion is remembered only as the seat of King Midas, he of the golden touch, and the place where Alexander the Great struck a famous blow in legend and metaphor. Challenged to separate the strands of an impossible knot, the Gordion knot, the conqueror cut through the problem, in the manner of conquerors, with one authoritative swing of his sword. After Midas and Alexander, Gordion languished on the fringes of history, and until recently archaeologists had taken little notice of its Celtic past. Yes, European Celts — the Gauls of Roman times and ...

Istanbul's Yapi Kredi Vedat Nedim Tor Museum is hosting an archaeology exhibition called "Phrygia," showcasing a selection of major Phrygian artifacts on loan from various museums in Turkey, including the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara and the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. The exhibit, held under scientific advice from archaeologist Taciser Sivas, will run until April 13.

A team of archaeologists have unearthed new evidence of massive, monumental defensive works at the Citadel Mound site of ancient Gordion in Turkey. Excavations have also revealed ancient industrial activity dating back to the 11th century BCE... Brian Rose of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues have uncovered massive defensive walls, part of a road, and industrial work spaces dated back to some of the earliest periods of the site... "Gordion’s historical significance derives from its very long and complex sequence of occupation, with seven successive settlements spanning a period of nearly 4500 years," says Rose. "What we discovered was...

Refinements of radiocarbon dates appear to rob the monumental tomb at Gordion of its claim to having been the final resting place of the illustrious King Midas, researchers reported last week in the journal Science. American and European scientists analyzed the effects of the sun's cycles on amounts of radioactivity absorbed from year to year, as recorded in tree rings. They said the research had given archaeologists and historians a more precise chronology for the Middle East and Aegean regions in the Bronze and Iron Ages. One of the researchers, Dr. Peter I. Kuniholm, an archaeologist at Cornell University, said ...

December 25, 2001 Archaeologists Find Celts in Unlikely Spot: Central Turkey In the remains of Galatian Gordion in Turkey, archaeologists found a workshop, top, that probably was built in the early third century B.C. A crudely sculptured face, center, with stylistic similarities to heads from Europe attributed to the Celts, was discovered, as were clay loom weights used in weaving. The weights had fallen, along with a pot. By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD n storybook histories, the ancient city of Gordion is remembered only as the seat of King Midas, he of the golden touch, and the place where Alexander the ...

Amazon Warrior WomenThis painting on a Greek vase depicts an Amazon woman warrior on horseback engaged in battle.Amazons in myth: History's first mention of a race of warrior women comes in Homer's ILIAD, an account of the Trojan War, probably written in the 8th to the 7th century B.C. Homer's Amazons, a race of fierce women who mated with vanquished male foes and kept only the female children they bore, were believed to occupy the area around the Black Sea. Amazon women also crop up in other Greek myths. One of the labors of Hercules, for example, required him to...