Of Outstanding Value to Humanity

Originally Published in 2024

Gordion excavation team working on the Midas Mound. — The road to Gordion’s Citadel Mound leads through a chain of over 100 royal burial mounds, the oldest in Asia Minor. One of these, the “Midas Mound” tumulus, was the first major construction project of King Midas in 740 BCE, and the wooden tomb chamber within it—the oldest standing wooden building in the World—is continually monitored by the Gordion excavation team. Photo by Gebhard Bieg.

In September 2023, Gordion, Türki̇ye, capital of ancient Phrygia, became the first site to be deemed “Of outstanding value to humanity” and inscribed on the world heritage list by UNESCO while under active excavation by the Penn Museum.

Rodney S. Young. — Rodney S. Young was Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania and head of the Museum’s Mediterranean Section. A complex, charismatic, and dominating figure, he directed the Gordion excavations from 1950 until his untimely death in a car accident in Philadelphia in 1974.

Penn at Gordion

In 1950, the Penn Museum began excavating at the ancient Phrygian site of Gordion in West Central Türki̇ye, approximately 65 miles southwest of Ankara.

Led by Penn professor Rodney S. Young, the project has systematically revealed an imposing city that controlled the Phrygian kingdom, and it has been conducted under the auspices of the Penn Museum for nearly 75 years. Gordion has proven itself to be one of the most important excavation projects in the region, revealing evidence for habitation at the site that spans more than four millennia, from ca. 2400 BCE to 1400 CE.

In the following pages of photographs and illustrations, we trace Gordion’s development as both an influential ancient city and a rich archaeological site.

From the Bronze Age to modern times, Gordion has occupied a strategic location on a long-distance trade route connecting the Middle East with the Mediterranean. As the royal capital of ancient Phrygia, Gordion had been a powerful and influential political and cultural hub, and consistently maintained cultural ties with the great civilizations to its west (Lydian, Macedonian, and Roman) and its east (Hittite, Neo-Hittite, Assyrian, Urartian, and Persian). It has also entered the public imagination as the land once ruled by the eighth century BCE King Midas, known for his “golden touch” (a legend that represents the great wealth of the region), as well as the place where Alexander the Great unsheathed his sword to cut the Gordian Knot (a moment that symbolized the Macedonian conquest of the Persian Empire).

Aerial view of Gordion in 1950. — Aerial view of Gordion in 1950, during the first season of the Penn excavations. The Citadel Mound is at lower left, and Tumulus MM (“Midas Mound”) at upper right.

Map of Anatolia. — A map of Anatolia with a reconstruction of the area influenced by Phrygian culture during the eighth century BCE; by G. Darbyshire, A. Anderson, and G. Pizzorno.

Bronze vessels arranged on a table. — A selection of the many bronze vessels discovered inside Tumulus MM, believed to belong to Gordias, father of the fabled King Midas. Some of the vessels still retained the sediment from the funeral meal that was served in ca. 740 BCE. Analysis of the sediments by Dr. Patrick McGovern of the Penn Museum indicates that the feast consisted of a spicy meat stew with lentils, washed down with an alcoholic beverage that combined wine, beer, honey, and saffron; photo by Tom Stanley.

Tumulus O burial mound. — The Hellenistic burial mound, Tumulus O (ca. 300 BCE, Macedonian period), was excavated in 1955. The stone tomb chamber, covered by an earthen mound, has two rooms, each with a distinctive corbelled roof that is paralleled in other dynastic burials from western Anatolia. Although the tomb had been robbed in antiquity, fragments of a terracotta sarcophagus were found.

Ancient Innovators

The Citadel Mound contains nine settlement layers that document nearly 4,000 years of life at Gordion. The residents were innovators in architecture, city planning, and the production of textiles, furniture, mosaics, and metalwork.

Excavations have uncovered the oldest standing wooden building known in the world (Tumulus MM tomb chamber, ca. 740 BCE), the earliest decorated pebble mosaics ever found (ca. 825 BCE), and some of the best-preserved wooden furniture from antiquity (9th and 8th centuries BCE). Gordion has therefore become an exceptional type-site in for the archaeology of the region, demonstrating the major role that Phrygia played in cultural and economic exchange between the Mediterranean and the Middle East during the Iron Age.

Two bronze cauldrons inside a wooden tomb chamber. — The wooden tomb chamber inside Tumulus MM (ca. 740 BCE), during the excavations in 1957. Three bronze cauldrons on iron stands (two pictured here), in situ along the south wall, are surrounded by several large bronze jugs and ornamental drinking bowls.

An ivory plaque of a mounted Phrygian warrior. — An ivory plaque of a mounted Phrygian warrior, dated to the later ninth century BCE, discovered inside the monumental Megaron 3 building on the Citadel Mound.

A World Heritage Site

The UNESCO and ICOMOS team. — The UNESCO and ICOMOS team touring the Citadel Mound with excavation director Brian Rose. Photo by Zekeriya Utğu.

After a two-year application and approval process, Gordion was inscribed on the World Heritage site list overseen by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The application was jointly prepared by the Turkish government’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism in tandem with the Gordion excavation team. When UNESCO’s representatives visited the site to evaluate the application, the team escorted them to many of the tumuli (burial mounds) that surround the ancient city. Finally, they went to the Citadel Mound and presented a tour to a wider group of cultural heritage experts who formed part of the UNESCO team.

Tumulus MM burial mound. — Tumulus MM (ca. 740 BCE), the burial mound where Penn Museum’s Rodney S. Young discovered the oldest standing wooden building in the world in 1957. The tomb is now considered to belong to the father of Midas, the Phrygian ruler Gordias, whose tomb featured over 100 bronze bowls and vessels, over 180 bronze clothing pins, and some of the most luxurious and best-preserved wooden furniture ever to have been found at an archaeological site. Photo by Gebhard Bieg.

People posing for photo at the reception. — The reception in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, following Gordion’s inscription on UNESCO’s World Heritage Site List in September of 2023, with Penn Museum’s C. Brian Rose pictured second from right.

A Future for Gordion’s Past

Today, upon arriving at the Citadel, visitors’ eyes are drawn to the East Citadel gate of 850 BCE, with bastions that still rise to a height of 10 meters. This is the best preserved Iron Age Citadel gate in Türki̇ye.

A recently completed architectural conservation program, seven years in duration, will ensure that it continues to stand for many more generations. The perimeter of the Citadel Mound is now equipped with information panels chronicling the 4,000-year occupation levels of the site, which are presented as well in a new guidebook. All of this information is shared with the youth of the region through Ayşe Salzmann’s Cultural Heritage Education Program, designed to guarantee a future for Gordion’s past.

Conservation work on the Early Phrygian citadel’s East Gate. — Conservation work on the Early Phrygian citadel’s East Gate (constructed ca. 850 BCE), in 2014; photo by Gebhard Bieg.

Students at a lecture, standing near a display of animal bones. — Students in the Gordion Cultural Heritage Education Program (CHEP) attend a lecture on faunal analysis at the dig house; photo by Brian Rose.

C. Brian Rose and Gareth Darbyshire. — Since Rodney S. Young’s death, the Penn Museum’s work at Gordion was directed by four eminent scholars: Keith DeVries (1974-1987); G. Kenneth Sams and Mary Voigt (co-directors, 1988-2012); and current director C. Brian Rose (right). Dr. Rose came to Penn Museum after decades as a leading expert on the archaeology of ancient Troy, in northwestern Türkiye. He works closely with Gordion Project Archivist Gareth Darbyshire (left). Their excavations in Türkiye take place from June to August each summer. Photo by Gebhard Bieg.

C. Brian Rose is Ferry Curator-in-Charge, Mediterranean Section, and James B. Pritchard Professor of Archaeology.
Gareth Darbyshire is the Gordion Project Archivist and a Research Associate at the Penn Museum.

Of Outstanding Value to Humanity

Penn at Gordion

Ancient Innovators

A World Heritage Site

A Future for Gordion’s Past

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