The Ancients - King Midas

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

As Shirley Bassey once said, "He's the man. The man with the Midas touch." But who was the man that's inspired stories from Greek myths to Bond bangers?In this episode, Tristan Hughes is joined by archaeologist and classicist Professor Brian Rose to discuss the real King Midas, ruler of the Phrygian Kingdom in West Central Turkey between 740 and 700 BCE. They delve into the two sides of Midas: the historical and the mythical, explaining the origins of the both the Golden Touch myth, and why Midas is sometimes depicted with donkey's ears, and what we know about the real man and his kingdom based on Rose's excavations at the site of Gordian.The Senior Producer was Elena GuthrieScript written by Andrew HulseVoice over performed by Lucy DavidsonThe Assistant Producer was Annie ColoeEdited by Joseph KnightIf you enjoyed this episode, you might also enjoy other episodes in the series: Zeus: King of the Gods, Hera: Queen of the Gods, Hephaestus: God of Fire, Aphrodite: Goddess of Love, Ares: God of War and Athena: Goddess of WisdomFor more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - enter promo code ANCIENTS for a free trial, plus 50% off your first three months' subscription.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. a story of Olympus and the deathless gods who govern earth, sea and sky. That is what the craftsman asks as he kneels with his young son upon the banks of the river Pactolus. Together they are panning the riverbed. The sun scoops wet heaps onto the metal dish While the craftsman gently, nervously swirls the mixture His motion forces it to separate Water, sand, silt

The craftsman sighs and chucks it away And so the process begins again. Scoop, swirl, separate, sigh. Water, sand, silt. Scoop, swirl, separate, sigh. Water, sand, silt. Scoop, swirl, separate, smile. For this time, something glitters amidst the sand and the silt.

Gold. Gold so fine it could fill an hourglass and measure minutes in luxury. The sun shrieks in delight. The gods have answered their wishes. But the craftsman shushes him, scolds him, for he knows how fickle wishes of gold can be. Is not the river Pactolus the result of such a folly? The story of King Midas and his golden touch. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode,

history hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode, well this weekend, it's coronation weekend in the United Kingdom, the crowning of King Charles III. And so in today's episode, we've got a royal theme on the ancients. We're talking all about King Midas, renowned from Greek mythology as the man with the Midas touch, whatever he touched turned to gold. But did you also know that Midas was actually a historical figure? He ruled a kingdom in central Anatolia called the Kingdom of Phrygia and he ruled from a city called Gordion. And we have archaeological and literary evidence for this historical figure. So in this special episode, we're going to be delving into the mythology of Midas, but also the historical figure too. We'll be starting the episode off with a story, a retelling of the Midas touch myth. And then we have an interview with Professor Brian Rose,

all about Gordian and what the archaeology and the literature has revealed about the historical King Midas. Brian, he was on the podcast very recently to talk all about the history of Troy, but he and his team are currently working at Gordion excavating the site, so he is the perfect guest to talk through what we know about Midas. I really hope you enjoy, and here's the story of King Midas. The Muses open their story with a marvel worthy of alchemists and conjurers, a rosebud turning to gold. The transmutation is not the flow of molten metal, but like the spread of frost,

all fractal patterns and crooked fingers. As the gold stretches beyond the petals, it begins to harden the leaves and stiffen the stem. It passes even beneath the soil. When King Midas grasps the plant, it pulls free from the ground in one movement, and the roots are fine gilded spindles. His touch truly is gold. How has the king come upon such a gift, you ask?

Only by a god, of course. For a month now, the plain of Phrygia has played host to the parade of the satyrs, creatures half man, half beast. At their head rides the reveler Dionysus, god of wine and wild things, and at their tail, seated backwards upon a donkey, rides the oldest of the satyrs. Do not think this position some dishonour. No, the old satyr only trails the procession because he is supremely drunk, so inebriated that the hangover would slay a mortal man. Before long, he has fallen far enough behind that he's lost altogether.

altogether. That is how the servants of King Midas come to find a lone donkey grazing in the furthest pastures of the palace. An old satyr, pot-bellied and bald, slumped in its saddle. Now, King Midas knows the stories. He knows the dangers of denying welcome to gods, even minor ones. He knows, too, the rewards. So he follows the rites of hospitality to the letter. Phrygia may be a poor place when tallied in metals and jewels, but in victuals and vines it is second to none. but in vittles and vines it is second to none. And for ten days and ten nights he feasts the old satyr with banquet upon banquet.

As is custom, only on the final day does Midas ask his guest's identity. I am Silenus, firstborn of the Satyrs and foster father to Dionysus. As he escorts old Silenus back to the parade, the king's glee is palpable. And when he sees the delight with which Dionysus greets his foster father, Midas is sure of a reward. It proves to be a wish. Dionysus will grant the king anything he desires. Phrygia is a poor kingdom.

I wish for a golden touch that I may be richer than any king before me. It is a wish only a man would make, and a god could deliver. Dionysus grants it with childlike delight. From his finger he slips a ring, twists a vine crowned with a seed. Plant this in your palace gardens and you will have your wish. For an afternoon, Midas indulges in his Auromania and the sound of transmutation fills the halls of his palace, a scratching like hoarfrost as gold creeps across statues, pillars and flagstones. But the delight does not last long. When his servants serve him fruit upon a newly minted platter, the true meaning of his wish becomes clear.

He picks up an apple, and before it has even reached his lips, it is cast in gold. He tears through the palace pantries, leaving an auric trail in his desperate wake, but nothing can sate his hunger, nothing can slake his thirst. but nothing can sate his hunger, nothing can slake his thirst. Water beads into metal upon his tongue till he wretches gold fine as sand. Finally, Midas slumps in his gleaming throne and his tears clang against the stone floor. His wish has proved itself little more than pyrite. Fool's gold. He can ride no horse. His prized stallion is a glittering effigy at the stable door. Diostalion is a glittering effigy at the stable door.

He can ride no chariot. The weight of gold is too great. So Midas must walk by foot. That is how the satyrs of Dionysus come to find a lone man, weak and parched, collapsed at the edge of their parade. When they bring him before the reveler, Midas begs to have his wish reversed, but Dionysus only responds with confusion.

You see, one must never forget that deathless gods do not see the world the way that mortals do. Gods do not thirst, they do not hunger. And so Dionysus granted the wish the only way he knew how, as only a god could enjoy and a mortal would suffer. Indeed, Dionysus' confusion is so great that he toys with the idea of refusing altogether It is only Silenus who changes his mind After all, how could the god of wine refuse a man a drink? Bathe in the waters of the river Pactolus

And you will have your wish undone. All night, as Midas's body floats in the river, the Pactolus flows with gold like thick clouds of ink. like thick clouds of ink. The grains stain the water for miles and miles until they settle amidst the sand and the silt. Only when day breaks does the king finally turn his head and dare a drink. Water laps at his cracked lips. It tastes of metal, of gold, but only faintly.

Brian, it is a pleasure to have you back on the podcast so soon. Thank you. Good to be back. You're more than welcome. And for a topic like this, King Midas, we think of Midas as this legendary king, but he was in fact a historical character. Yes, there are two sides to Midas. There's the legendary side and the historical side. For the historical side, Midas was a king who ruled probably for four decades between about 740 and 700 BCE at the site of Gordian in west central Turkey, the capital of the Phrygian kingdom. Asia Minor, trying to pull them away from Assyrian control. And he also liaised with the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, being the first foreign king to make a dedication to that sanctuary. But there's also the legendary side of King Midas, primarily coming from Greek literature,

which describes him as a man with a golden touch and one with ass's ears. man with a golden touch, and one with ass's ears. Let's delve into the mythological side of Midas first. So what are these central myths that surround this figure? Well, for Midas, again, there are two primary stories. One, the golden touch, two, the donkey's ears. With the Midas touch, according to the stories, anything Midas touched turned into gold and ultimately this proved impossible to live with. So he went to the city of Sardis, the capital of the Lydian kingdom, washed his hands in the river, and according to the story, transferred the gold giving abilities that he had to the river itself. This is what we call an ideological myth, a myth explaining the origin of things. Why is it that the river that flows through the Lydian

capitalist artist, the Pactolus River, why does that have particles of gold in the river? And they answered it with this story of Midas transferring his gold-giving abilities to the river. And of course, you can still see people panning gold from rivers, not just in the Lydian capital of Sardis, but also in Georgia, when people will put sheepskins in the river, the fibers of gold will adhere to the sheepskin. You pull it out and you have the golden fleece, as in the story of Jason and the golden fleece. So that is one story. And we were always mystified by this story. I'll get to the other story in a minute. But we were

mystified by the story of the golden touch, because you would expect that we as archaeologists excavating Gordian, Midas' capital city, would find gold everywhere we dig and in all of the royal tombs. And in fact, we find almost none of it. We excavated, or rather the Penn Museum excavated in 1957, a monumental tomb that we think belonged to Midas's father. It had never been plundered and within it was not a stick of gold. So where did the story of the golden touch come from? We think that it related to the special treatment that they used for their clothing. So we analyzed the shroud that covered the body of King Midas's father, or the man that we think is King Midas's father. We found that it had been coated in an iron oxide pigment called girtite,

which gives off a golden sheen. And we found these shrouds, these textiles, in other royal tombs also coated with this iron oxide pigment, girtite. And so our current theory is that the story of the golden touch didn't derive from the fact that they used a lot of gold objects. They didn't. But rather from the fact that the people of the city, or rather the aristocrats, looked golden as they walked in formal processions from the fact that the people of the city, or rather the aristocrats, looked golden as they walked in formal processions through the city by virtue of this special dye that they put on their clothing that was restricted to the aristocracy.

Then the other story was involving Midas's donkey's ears, that he was called upon to be a judge in a contest between the god of music, Apollo, and either Pan or Marcius. And he decided against Apollo in the judgment. And Apollo said, if you're going to make such foolhardy decisions, I'm going to make you look foolhardy and cause donkey's ears to grow. And so in some images, there's a wonderful vase by the Midas painter in the British Museum. You'll see Midas with donkey's ears. That's archaeology alongside the myths where you try to figure out the origins of the stories.

Presuming with the donkey's ears, unlike the Golden Touch, where you're at a place like Gordian and you're looking at the archaeology and you're trying to figure out what is the origin of this myth. With the donkey's ears, is there any potential similar origin story that it might have derived from? Is he associated with donkeys in Gordian in that part of central Anatolia? Is there any potential historical basis for that myth too, alongside what you were saying with the Midas touch? Yeah, Sarah Morris at University of California, Los Angeles, argued that the image of donkey's ears are part of Luvian, the pictographic script that was used in Western Asia Minor in the late Bronze and early Iron Age, that these images of donkey's ears were part of the symbol for king. And so through a process of metamorphosis, these images that were part of the signature of a king's name

became associated with donkey's ears and ultimately applied to Midas, who in the Iron Age occupied or ruled the most important kingdom in Asia Minor. So it's not surprising that there would be a linkage between the two. Well, let's now delve really into the archaeology behind this historical figure of Midas. So we've mentioned the place Gordian, you've said Asia Minor, Anatolia, but really describe the setting for us, Brian. Whereabouts in Anatolia are we talking with Gordian? What does it look like today? Well, Gordian is in west central Turkey. It's about an hour's drive southwest of Ankara. It is a large settlement mound, not unlike Troy, comprising nine cities, one built on top of the other, reaching a height

of 15 or 16 meters above the surrounding plains and stretching from about 2400 BCE to 1400 CE, about 2400 BCE to 1400 CE. So nearly 4,000 years of nearly continuous occupation. And that too hearkens to one's mind the image of Troy. It's however much larger than Troy. The mound measures about 450 by 300 meters. So that's four times the size of the mound of Troy. So that's four times the size of the Mount of Troy. And the best preserved of these nine cities are the 9th century and 8th century BCE settlements. So the 9th century settlement, which is a phenomenally strong citadel with fortification

walls that are still over 10 meters high, that is the one that you will see as you approach the site. But the 8th century, that is the Gordian of Midas, was even more monumental in that there was not just a citadel, but a very large residential district, actually two large residential districts to the north, south, and west of the settlement with very strong forts incorporated into the outer fortifications that protected the settlement and with 126 royal burial mounds at last count surrounding the settlement. So already by the time that the historical Midas, he assumes power at Gordion, this settlement, it's already monumental. It's big. It seems to already have been one of the

key political centers of Asia Minor. Yeah, that's true. And the Iliad, in fact, to go back to Troy, is written down for the first time in the late 8th century. That was the time when Midas was king of Phrygia. And if you look at the references to Phrygia in the Iliad, they refer to a kingdom that is phenomenally strong with warriors lined up along the river, the Sangarios River that runs through the city. And remember, of course, that King Priam was married to a Phrygian. It was Hecuba. So it was a dynastic marriage. And all of this probably relates to the fact that at the time in which the Iliad is first written down, Phrygia, and for that matter Midas, were among the most important entities in Asia Minor.

And you mentioned the word Phrygia there, so this kingdom that Midas rules over. But taking a step back, who exactly were the Phrygians? The Phrygians, based on later literature, were a group of people who came into Asia Minor from southeastern Europe, from the area of the Balkans, after the end of the palaces at the end of the Bronze Age. So after 1200, in the 12th century, you get groups of migrants that cross the two easiest crossing points between continental Europe and Asia, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. Some cross the Dardanelles and settle at Troy. Others cross the Bosphorus and settle in the area around Gordion. These were the Phrygians. Their alphabet looks very similar to Greek. If you were to read a Phrygian inscription, you'd be able to sound it out,

even though the grammar is different. Nevertheless, the alphabets look almost identical. So it's an Indo-European language, of course, like Greek, and very similar to it in many respects. And so therefore, if we go to the late 8th century, to the time that Midas is ruling at Gordion, an incredibly powerful city, he's ruling over a large kingdom. But describe to us the architectural layout, what the archaeology is revealing about Gordion under the rule of King Midas. What's right at the centre? In the 8th century city, they followed in essence what they had had in the 9th century, a monumental citadel gate leading into diplomatic districts where ambassadors from other states, into diplomatic districts where ambassadors from other states, Assyria, Lydia, even conceivably Greece, would have been entertained. And then again, a large workshop area where textiles

were produced and food was prepared for the entire citadel. The main difference between the 9th century and the 8th century, I suppose, was the size of the residential districts, which encompass over 100 hectares. And even last summer, with remote sensing using magnetic prospection, we discovered an entirely new residential district to the east of the site. So it looks as if the site is twice as large as we thought it was, which is not surprising for a capital city, but a surprise nevertheless. So when you approach the site, it must have been unreal almost. It was unlike any other site in Asia Minor. You pass through 120 or so royal burial mounds, which again is unlike any other part of Anatolia. And then you see this monumental citadel rising before you. So if you had gone to

the land of the Assyrians, to what is now northern Iraq, or to the kingdom of Urartu in northeastern Turkey and Armenia, you would have seen equally powerful citadels. But this landscape was, in essence, a landscape of power. It would have shown you how much authority this kingdom had. Well, I was going to go on to the burial mounds a bit later, but why not? Let's go on to them now, because these burial mounds, these tumuli, as you say, if they're visible for anyone approaching Gordion, they are meant to be seen. This is a display of power, of wealth, I'm presuming, by those who had ruled this settlement. Yeah, exactly. If you were to go to the Iron Age city-states in southeastern Turkey, they would make monumental statues of their kings and their gods. In Gordian, in Phrygia,

they didn't do that. The monumentality associated with the royalty lay in the size of the tumuli. And so the largest tumulus at Gordion is what we call the Midas Mound. And again, the tomb that we associate with King Midas' father, rising 53 meters high, that would be about 170 feet high. At the time in which it was built in 740 BCE, it would have been the largest burial mound in all of Anatolia, in all of Asia Minor. And it would have retained that title for the next 200 years until Croesus, the king of Lydia, built an even larger burial mound for his father, Aliates. And it's not that much larger. It's about 15 meters higher. But still, the mound that Midas built for his father, his first major public undertaking,

is the second largest burial mound in Asia Minor. And so the roads that led into Gordian were configured so that you were led directly through the burial mound area. So you would have been fully aware of this landscape of power. And within it, you had wooden tomb chambers. All of these royal burial mounds contain wooden tomb chambers. The only one that still survives intact is the one in the Midas Mound, the oldest standing wooden building in the world. Well, let's delve into that a bit more, because normally it feels as if talking about tombs is something we talk at the end of focusing

on a person and their death. But actually, we can start with the tomb of Midas from what you were saying. Please explain why we think that this isn't the tomb of Midas but actually his father, and so therefore we believe that this massive monumental burial was one of the historical Midas' first building constructions that he did. Well, we know something about Midas' historical activities and military activities from the contemporary Assyrian records. The Assyrian kings would keep annals of what was going on. And they refer in the last quarter of the 8th century to Midas as being a kind of formidable opponent.

He's trying to pull the cities of what is now southeastern Turkey away from Assyrian control. And so the king of the Assyrians, Sargon II, is literally in the annals stamping his foot up and down saying, why is this man doing this to me? And then finally, they have a diplomatic accord. We don't know exactly why around 709. And he says, okay, Midas is now my friend, and I'm going to send an ambassador to the city. But this is all happening in the last quarter of the 8th century. So that gives us an historical anchor for Midas.

And tree ring dating of the wooden beams that make up this tomb chamber in the Midas Mound, the oldest standing wooden building in the world, the tree ring dating, the dendrochronology, gives us a date of 740. So we assume that this was done right at the beginning of Midas's reign. in the world, the tree ring dating, the dendrochronology gives us a date of 740. So we assume that this was done right at the beginning of Midas's reign. And given the fact that it's the largest burial mound in Anatolia is probably to be associated with his father. And we do, in fact, have the articulated skeleton of the decedent in the tomb chamber, which is a skeleton of a man who died between the ages of

60 and 65. And we don't know exactly how he died, but he died about that time. So you put all the evidence together. It looks as if Midas's father, whom tradition records as a man named Gordius, dies in 740. Midas builds the tomb as a tribute to his father and as an indication of his own strength, and then has roughly a 40-year reign, liaising with the Assyrians and the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, and then dies around 700. So that tomb of Midas's father, it is the oldest standing wooden building in the world, and his artifacts were discovered intact within it too. That is fascinating. Yeah, we were very lucky. The tomb was almost too big to rob. I can imagine looters

trying to rob the tomb from time to time, but it's difficult to know where the tomb chamber is. The ancients weren't idiots. They never put the tomb chamber dead center in the tumulus. So it's hard to know where to dig. And Rodney Young, the man who excavated this tumulus in 1957, actually took drilling equipment to the top of the mound and drilled down at 100 different locations, knowing that eventually the drill would strike the stone rubble that was placed around the wooden tomb chamber and he'd know where it was located. the drill would strike the stone rubble that was placed around the wooden tomb chamber and hit know where it was located. And so he brought in workers from the coal mining town of Zonguldak

on the Black Sea and had them dig in three eight-hour shifts. So digging 24 hours a day for 30 days, and then they reached the tomb chamber, saw that it had never been robbed, and there were no doors or windows because the people who built it never expected anyone else to enter that tomb. So he had to cut a hole in the side of the tomb chamber, hoping that the world's oldest standing wooden building didn't collapse on his head, along with the 53 meters of earth above it. And it didn't. And he was able to enter and found everything that had been placed there 2,700 years ago. And what did they find within them? Well, you know, they didn't find any gold. That was one issue I referred to earlier. But

they found the best preserved wooden furniture of antiquity, serving stands and stools and tables, just amazing material with elaborately decorated designs, all of which were geometric, like the mosaics of Gordian and probably the megaron facades of Gordian. All of it is geometric in form. And they found a hundred bronze vessels, bowls for dining, each of which was slightly different. So it looks as if there were a hundred mourners who came to the funeral service and they each brought their best bronze bowl from their pantry and they drank the alcoholic beverage that we know they produced and ate the meal from these bowls. And we have the cauldrons that held the alcoholic beverage as well. And on some of these bowls, there were wax strips that

were placed in which they wrote their names. So one in particular is famous, Tsitsidos, the name of an aristocrat whose name is preserved in his bowl. And we also found his name incised on one of the roof beams of the tomb chamber. It looks as if when a roof beam destined for the tomb chamber was on the ground, four men signed their names, and then the roof beam went up onto the roof. This is the only example I know of, of beam signing in antiquity, although you find it all over the place now, the 20th, 21st centuries, it's done all the time. It was done a few years ago, right next to the Penn Museum for the new hospital, the president of the university signed the beam. But in antiquity, there are no other examples as far as I know, and it was probably more common

than we think of. But no one thinks of looking at the beams. Of course, there aren't that many wooden tombs that survive. But I'm sure if Rodney Young had had this idea when he excavated the other wooden tomb chambers of Gordian, if he had thought, I wonder if anyone signed the roof beam, if he had looked at them, he probably would have found the signatures. But that was an incredible discovery of just a few years ago. And I guess one of the other things is, as you say, this is wood and the wood has survived. I'm guessing, was it anaerobic conditions down there? There was no oxygen whatsoever until Rodney and his team, they dug in and they actually uncovered the chamber itself. Exactly. And it's a constant temperature. Fall, winter, spring, summer, constant temperature,

because you're under 53 metres of earth and 150 metres into the mound. So it's always 49 degrees. No matter what happens outside, it's always 49 degrees. And the fact that the temperature is constant helps with the preservation of the wood. And you mentioned the writing there. Now, in Midas' Phrygian kingdom, what language were they speaking? What was their writing technique? Well, it was the Phrygian language, this Indo-European language. They didn't write long statements. It's not like Hittite or Akkadian or Greek for that matter. These are short lists. If anything, it's closer to Linear B, the language that they used in late Bronze Age Greece. And there is, in fact, another connection to Greece. We have a monument called the Midas

Monument at a site called Midas City, which is about a two-hour drive west of Gordion. It's a rock-cut imitation of a megaron facade. So megaron, a large mansion with a vestibule and a large room. This one is 17 meters high and 17 meters wide, which is about the size of an actual megaron at Gordion. And we have an inscription at the top where someone dedicates the monument to Midas as Wanox and Lawagetas. Those are terms that you find in Linear B in Mycenaean Greece, Wanox referring to king, Lawagetas referring to leader of the army. So it's conceivable that they had been using these terms since the Bronze Age because, of course, the Afrigens came from the area of Thrace. So it may be that they picked it up from the Mycenaeans, or they had always used it themselves prior to their transit from

the Balkan area to Central Asia Minor, and it had survived for all of these centuries. Is this mention of Midas on the Midas monument, is this one of the only examples we have currently of his name actually being mentioned on a Phrygian text? examples we have currently of his name actually being mentioned on a Phrygian text? We have a number of texts, not very many, that mention Midas. And of course, he's mentioned in the Assyrian annals. They call him Mita, M-I-T-A, rather than Midas, but it's clearly the same man. There aren't a lot of mentions of him. Of course, the Greek historian Herodotus mentions him as the dedicator of his wooden ivory throne at the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. But there are enough mentions that we can put it all together and gradually form a sense

of what his career was like. Hi there. I'm Don Wildman, host of the new podcast, American History Hit. Twice a week, I'll be exploring stories from America's past to help us understand the United States of today. Join me as I head back in time to witness Thomas Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence,

head to the battlefields during the Civil War, visit Chief Poetin as he prepares for war with English colonists, tour Central Park before it was Central Park, and a city in Tennessee which helped build the atomic bomb. From famous battlefields to secret cities,

from familiar names to lesser-known events, I'll speak with leading experts from across the United States and beyond to bring American history to life. Join me every Monday and Thursday for American History Hit,

a podcast by History Hit. Well, let's focus on Midas' connections with the Greek world then. So if we focus on the literature first, and you mentioned Herodotus there, so is that the main account we have of Midas in Herodotus, the fact that he leaves this great dedication at Delphi? Yeah, there are a few other references, but that is one of the references that's most often seized on in part because we're told by Herodotus that Midas' wooden ivory throne was visible in the treasury of the Corinthians at Delphi. And in front of the treasury of the Corinthians at Delphi, the French excavators found an ivory figurine of a standing man with a lion,

so we often say lion tamer, with cuttings in the back for a connection to a wooden matrix, probably a piece of furniture. And my colleague Keith DeVries argued that since this ivory figurine is part of a piece of furniture, since it dates stylistically to the late 8th century when Midas lived, since it was found in front of the treasury of the Corinthians, and since it's executed in an Asia Minor style, maybe this was part of the wooden ivory throne that Midas dedicated to Apollo. And you can see that on display in the Delphi Archaeological Museum today. So moving away from that account in the literature and that archaeological evidence from Delphi, if we go to Gordian, from the work that you and your team have done at Gordian and over the past 50 years or so by predecessors, has the archaeology revealed or affirmed that there was a strong connection with the Greek world been found start at Gordian in the late 9th century, around 825, and then spread to the Assyrian world and then spread to the Greek world.

That's after the death of Midas, but nevertheless, all of this is starting in Gordian. What we call an acrotyrion, a decorated stone set of volutes that would be placed at the top of a pediment, a gable. The earliest of those we find in Gordian before we find them in Greek architecture. The geometric decoration of the megarons that we think we understand because of these rock-cut facades in Midas City. You find those on Greek temple models of the 8th century. So it may be that the surface decoration, wall decoration of buildings in Greece owes something to the Phrygian tradition. We also have bronze clothing pins or fibulae made in Phrygia that are often found in Greek

sanctuaries. or fibuli made in Phrygia that are often found in Greek sanctuaries. Midas reportedly married the daughter of the king of Kime, which is a Greek colony in Western Asia Minor. So that would suggest that Midas was bilingual, at least. There's a king in the Iron Age settlement of Carchemish in the 8th century Southeastern Asia Minor who claimed to know 12 or 13 languages. I forget exactly how the inscription goes, but it's something to the effect of, I have conquered all of these people, I have built a monumental kingdom, and I can speak 13 languages.

So clearly, one's knowledge of a multitude of languages was considered an indication of status, as it should be, of course. And Midas was at least bilingual and probably knew more than two languages. But Greek would have been one of them, given the fact that his wife was the daughter of the king of a Greek city. Do we know what gods or goddesses that Midas and his Phrygian subjects would have been worshipping in the late 8th century? We only know of one. This was the fertility goddess of Anatolia named Matar. She would ultimately acquire the name Sibylle or Cybele, and ultimately the Magna Mater,

the mother goddess of Asia Minor, who is imported to Rome in 205 BCE at the end of the Second Punic War, in theory to help them win the war against Hannibal. She is the only goddess who's represented in figurines, in objects that we've uncovered from the site. There are some additional sites not far away outside the cities where Matar was worshipped, but we don't have any other gods. The worship of Matar shows up in a variety of areas that look to have been under the control of Midas in the late 8th century. So I wondered if Midas used the cult of Matar as a way of unifying the disparate communities. So using religion as a way, as a kind of glue to bring together cities with different cultures and different habits. This is only a theory. I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to

prove it, but the prominence of the cult of Matar is off the charts as of the late 8th century BCE, and that's during the reign of Midas, and that's when the Phrygian kingdom reaches its greatest extent. I think it's likely, but I can never prove it. You mentioned reaching its greatest extent. Does Gordian at this time, and does the archaeology seem to affirm that it is under the reign of King Midas that this settlement in Asia Minor enjoys almost its golden age? I would argue that it does. In fact, we put on an exhibit at the Penn Museum in 2016 called The Golden Age of King Midas, where we brought together over 125 objects from four museums in

Turkey to make precisely that point, that this was a golden age for the Phrygian kingdom. Well, there you go. He has the golden touch, at least in that respect then. You mentioned that we know the site, or it seems very likely that that Midas mound is the mound of Midas's father. But you also mentioned that there are several other mounds surrounding Gordian too. Do we have any idea whether Midas might have been buried in one of those other mounds? Well, he must have. And you bring up an interesting point. Where was Midas buried? We've been digging at Gordian for over 70 years, and we have no idea where he was buried.

We often talk about this at the excavation. Where do you think he was buried? And we don't get any closer with each new conversation than we did during the last conversation. His tomb must be there. I know where I would have built it if I were Midas. I would have started it during my life because he was warring with the Assyrians. He could, in theory, have lost his life at any time. So you want to have a tumulus ready for occupancy if you need it in an emergency situation. And I would have put it next to that of my father, the largest tumulus in Asia Minor. But he didn't. We have other monumental tumuli in the vicinity of that of Midas's father, and none of them is Midas. That is clear. We've got plenty of tumuli to excavate. You don't want

to let your eyes get too big for your stomach. If you start excavating a tumulus, you have to finish it during the summer in which you started it, because otherwise the looters will come in after you leave, after you go back to teaching, and they'll finish it for you. So we don't dig that many tumuli. I did dig one that may be associated with the family of Midas a few years ago, in tandem with the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara. We formed a partnership, and we excavated a very large tomb to which the middle Phrygian, the 8th century citadel gate, had been turned. We thought there was probably a dialogue

between the citadel gate and the surrounding burial mounds because we have that with the 9th century. The 9th century citadel gate is oriented toward the oldest royal burial mound at Gordian. That's a clear link between architecture and surrounding landscape. Anyone who left the city had their eyes directly toward the earliest royal burial mound in the area. So then in the eighth century, when they rebuilt the city after a cataclysmic fire, they turned the gate and they turn it toward this burial mound. So we dug it in 2019 and it turned out to date to about 750 BCE, maybe 760, maybe 740, eighth century. And within it, we found the body of a woman who was about 25 and a child, roughly 8 to 10.

So a mother and her child in a royal burial mound. This is unusual for us. This is the earliest monumental tomb of a woman that has ever been found at Gordian. It would have been created, produced, built in the middle of the 8th century. Is this someone in the family of midas it's not unlikely given the fact that the monumental citadel gate is turned in that direction who is she our photographer gephardt beek said well it's midas's wife we're not anywhere close to that but i think as the analysis of the bones found inside continues, we may be able to say something

about the family of Midas because surely these bodies are associated with the royal family of the city. Before we start really wrapping up, Brian, are there any other particular artifacts from Gordian that really deserve mention that have shone a further light on the story of the historical Midas? Well, in a way, I mentioned the royal burial mound, Tumulus MM, the Midas mound excavated in 1957. And at the end of the funeral meal, with these hundred participants gathering together to honour the memory of Midas's father, they didn't bother washing the dishes at the end of the funeral meal because why bother? He's dead. So they would simply put the dirty dishes, bronze with these wax strips personalizing the bowls, in the tomb

and then closed it up so that when the tomb was excavated, the sediment from the funeral meal was still present at the bottom of the bowls and the cauldrons that held the alcoholic beverage. So we were able to analyze that at the Penn Museum and were able to determine that the mourners ate a stew and it was washed down with an alcoholic beverage composed of a mixture of wine, beer, honey, and saffron. And we published the recipe. This was done by a scientist at the Penn Museum named Pat McGovern, who's written a book called Uncorking the Past. He's an expert in ancient alcoholic beverages. And a local brewery bottled the beer that had been drunk at the funeral service of Midas' father, and they bottled it and promoted it as Midas Touch beer. I'm not sure if any of your listeners could get their hands on a bottle of Midas Touch beer, but if they were to do so, and if they were to drink it, they'd be drinking exactly,

but exactly, what Midas himself drank in 740 BC at the funeral of his father. That is an incredible fact there. I absolutely love it. To think that Midas could have eaten, could have drunk from that kind of recipe that you discovered from those pieces of pottery in the tomb. It's absolutely fascinating. Brian, last thing as we wrap up, let's talk a bit about the legacy of Midas. So Gordian after Midas, it seems its golden age reaches an end, but does the legacy of that king endure? Well, in a way, the earliest examples of the Phrygian cap that we have, a cap with a tassel that comes down over the front of the head, the earliest visual references to that that we have are at Gordian in

the 9th century BCE. And that develops into a symbol of the East, and we tend to call it the Phrygian cap. So the Phrygian cap was worn in depictions of the Persians, of the Trojans. Eventually, when Rome acknowledges its Trojan ancestry, you see the goddess Roma on coinage wearing a Phrygian cap to indicate Rome's connection to symbolic of liberty from antiquity. Now, that cap of liberty, the Pileus, is a conical cap, and they got it wrong in the French Revolution. I mean, a lot was happening. And so, they didn't do proper research, and they used the Phrygian cap as a symbol of liberty rather than the conical cap that they should have used. So, Phrygian cap simply indicating Eastern associations. That wasn't what the French were trying to stress, even though the French, too, traced their descent from the Trojans. So, the Phrygian cap develops into a symbol of

liberty. And then during the American Revolution, they pick up the Phrygian cap as a symbol of liberty from the French. And it starts being worn by personifications of America as a symbol of liberty. So all of this is going back to the Phrygians. Well, there you go. I think the story of later Gordian, the Persians, the Lydians, Alexander and the Gordian knot, that can all be for another day, especially now. I mean, Brian, it is fascinating what the archaeology is revealing about the historical King Midas. And do you think that more archaeological evidence for this figure is going to be unearthed at Gordian in the years ahead? Well, you know, last summer, I think as we were digging on the south side of the mound, I think we found the building, which was elaborately decorated, where the Gordian

knot was showcased. This was an intricate knot. I haven't mentioned this yet, but it's the other famous feature of Gordian, an intricate knot that was believed to go back to the time of Midas and his father Gordius. And there was a prophecy that whoever could untie the knot would become master of Asia. So when Alexander the Great comes to Gordian in 333 BCE, he tries to untie the knot, is unsuccessful, slices through it, thereby fulfilling the prophecy and giving rise to the expression, cutting the Gordian knot. In other words, finding a fast and efficient solution to a difficult problem. There you go. Well, fingers crossed you find more about that in the future.

Brian, this has been absolutely fantastic. And it just goes for me to say thank you so much for coming back on the podcast today. My pleasure. Good to talk to you. And it just goes for me to say thank you so much for coming back on the podcast today. My pleasure. Good to talk to you. Well, there you go. There was Professor Brian Rose returning to the show to tell the story of the historical King Midas, what the archaeology at Gordian and elsewhere is revealing about the man behind the myth.

I hope you enjoyed the episode. The script for the opening story in this episode, The Myth, was written by Andrew Hulse. It was narrated by Lucy Davidson. The senior producer for this episode was Elena Guthrie, the assistant producer Annie Colo, and the whole episode was mixed together by Joseph Knight. Thank you to all of you for your hard work in making this episode a reality, you heroes. But that's enough from me. I hope you have a great weekend and I will see you in the next episode.