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From the kitchen of Midas...feast recipes

funerary feast of king midas
introduction
.banquet furnishings
.remains of a feast
.served at the banquet?
.european cuisine
.acknowledgments+bibliography
.links
Fifty years ago, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum) began excavations at the ancient Phrygian capital of Gordion in central Turkey. Within six years, the expedition had made one of the most spectacular archaeological discoveries of the 20th century.
Midas Mound
The Midas Mound looms over the modern village of Yassihöyük and the village cemetery in the foreground.
In the largest burial mound at the site, they located what has since been identified as the tomb of Gordion's most famous son, King Midas.

A drilling rig was used to bore deeply into the mound. Some 40 meters below the upper surface, the team was rewarded—the discovery of a chamber, 5 by 6 meters in area. The excavators dug a horizontal trench into the side of the mound, then tunneled through a double wall of tree logs and timbers to reach the inner chamber, the earliest known intact wooden structure in the world.

"King Midas" laid out in state
“King Midas” laid out in state on a multi-layered pile of purple- and blue-dyed textiles inside his coffin.
Breaching the timber wall, the excavators were met with an amazing sight—at their feet was a body, laid out in state on a thick pile of dyed textiles inside a unique log coffin. An examination of the bones determined that the body was that of a male, aged 60-65.
“...scholars are generally agreed that this is indeed the tomb of King Midas...”
Taking other facts into consideration—the dating of the tomb (ca. 700 BC), its rich contents, a palace complex of the same period at the site, and Assyrian records describing an upstart ruler named Mita who controlled the people of Mushki (known as Phrygia by the Greeks) in eastern Anatolia—scholars are generally agreed that this is indeed the tomb of King Midas.

The preservation of the tomb's ancient organic materials, which generally degrade and rapidly disappear, was remarkable. Although the body of the king had disintegrated, patterns of purple and brown dyes were seen on the textile bedding when the tomb was first opened. (Indigo blue was confirmed as one of the dyes by Dr. Patrick McGovern and his laboratory in the Penn Museum.)
introduction

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