The most reliable information about the famous Phrygian king Midas comes from the contemporary records of the Assyrian king Sargon between 717 and 709 BCE. For most of that time, Midas posed a threat to Sargon by intriguing with restive western satellite kingdoms of the Assyrian empire. After an Assyrian governor launched an invasion of Phrygia, Midas ceased his subversive activities and himself sent tribute. An undated Assyrian text commending Midas’ help in nipping an anti-Assyrian diplomat …
In a society where there were no sacred texts or established doctrines that we can use to understand religious practice, our knowledge of Phrygian religion comes almost entirely from the physical remains of cult rituals: the representations of deities, votive offerings to them, and the sanctuaries and sacred spaces of the Phrygians. Our limited knowledge of the Phrygian language means that we do not know what the Phrygians thought about the divine, nor can we be certain about the nature of …
The tale of the Gordian Knot is one of the best known stories told about Gordion, and one of the few that features Gordion in a popular figure of speech. The story recounts an episode that took place in 333 BCE during the campaigns of Alexander of Macedon against the Persian Empire. Alexander was advancing with his army across Anatolia and came to Gordion, probably because this was a natural stopping point on the road that led inland from the Aegean Coast towards Ankara (ancient Ancyra) and …
