Phrygian road

Another beautiful day, we drove [... The Phrygians – Part II]]]> Gordion may have been the capital city of the Phrygians, but this valley held their most sacred temple. This is labeled on the map as King Midas’ tomb as well, because some of the inscriptions mention King Midas, but he is not believed to have been laid to rest here.

Phrygian road

Another beautiful day, we drove down to Eskisehir just to get out of the house. When we arrived, we found a nicely laid out city, but there was absolutely nothing to do. Taking a look at our guidebook, we discovered that a whole valley of Phrygian ruins lies just east of there.

The site is much more extensive and interesting than Gordion. There is no museum, but there is a trail to follow that leads you around the temple grounds. We enjoyed seeing the temple stone faces, many stairs and tunnels, some tombs, and even an ancient Phrygian road carved out of the tufa and complete with wheel ruts. The sites were some of the best preserved that we’ve seen. It took about an hour to walk the path around all the sites. The ticket taker also provided us with an informative brochure written in both Turkish and English.

The temple and its surrounds was only one of about six sites, but it was the only one our car could get to. The others, four castles and some more tombs, were all off the paved road. It has been raining a lot here, and there was too much mud to risk it. If you plan on going, try to go in a very dry season or with a four wheel drive vehicle.

Gordion – Not far from Ankara is a sleepy little village that houses a citadel and tomb of an ancient Anatolian people, called the Phrygians.

Who were the Phrygians? I honestly thought I had never heard of them, but discovered that their most famous king was none other than King Midas. [... The Phriggin’ Phrygians–Part I]]]>

Pots in the Gordion museum's garden.

Gordion – Not far from Ankara is a sleepy little village that houses a citadel and tomb of an ancient Anatolian people, called the Phrygians.

Who were the Phrygians? I honestly thought I had never heard of them, but discovered that their most famous king was none other than King Midas. Delving in deeper, we found out that another famous thing happened at Gordion. It is where Alexander the Great severed the Gordion Knot and conquered them.

Being so near, we took the first chance we could to go check out the site. It is not labeled as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and after we arrived, we could see why. The citadel mound is just that, a mound. You can climb around it and look down, but there’s really not much there. The tomb is likewise pretty boring. You walk through a tunnel to a reconstructed wooden building that purportedly used to house the remains of King Midas. At some point all the real treasures had been removed to museums throughout the world.

The one redeeming grace is the small museum that serves to pass on a little Phrygian history and explains the story of King Midas and the downfall of his people via Alexander. There were a few drinking vessels, some cooking pots, and a few other such artifacts to look at; all together the museum, tomb and citadel mound take about 1 – 2 hours to fully explore.

After our visit to the Phrygians, we did meander through some of the local villages and were able to take some wonderful portraits of village women and children, so this for me really made the jaunt worthwhile.