Penn Museum displays the Midas touch

When the Berlin-Baghdad railway was under construction in the 1890s, German engineers spotted massive mounds in the remote waste southwest of Ankara.

Two classicists excavated the largest of the mounds in 1900 and concluded they were digging at Gordion, the ancient capital of the Phrygian kingdom, ruled millennia ago by legendary King Midas.

But at the end of the summer they packed up and left.

Gordion sat untouched for 50 more years, until archaeologists from the Penn Museum launched what has been an astonishing ongoing exploration of one of the most fruitful sites of antiquity.

The fruits of that exploration go on display Saturday, when the Penn Museum opens "The Golden Age of King Midas," a unique snapshot featuring myth, history, clashing empires, and some of the magic names from mythology.

In 1957, Penn's Rodney Young uncovered - buried beneath an immense central mound rising 53 meters above the shrubby Anatolian waste - the intact, undisturbed funeral chamber of what was thought to be King Midas himself.

It is now believed that the chamber - the oldest surviving wooden structure in the world - was built by Midas for his father, King Gordios, in the eighth century B.C.E.

Drawing on museums in Turkey, Greece, and elsewhere, the King Midas show presents the discoveries of 67 years of Penn excavation, the museum's longest-running project.

On display will be great bronze cauldrons placed in the tomb in 740 B.C.E., graceful bronze bowls and fibula (garment pins), and a bit of fabric from the vestments of the dead king.

The exhibit features one of the oldest mosaics in the world, an ivory figure of a lion tamer, believed to be part of a throne dedicated by Midas to Apollo at Delphi (mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus), painted ceramics, and architectural terra-cotta.

But no gold. In fact, little gold has been found anywhere around Gordion.

C. Brian Rose, professor of archaeology, codirector of the Gordion project, and formerly a director of excavations at Troy, said Young, the first Penn archaeologist at the site, certainly expected to find a lot at Gordion.

"In those days, archaeologists dug enormous tracts of land in an effort to make sensational discoveries in as short a time as possible," said Rose, who curated the Midas exhibition. "He excavated a phenomenal amount of the site - nearly the entire eastern side of the mound in the 1950s, '60s, and the beginning of the '70s, as well as nearly a third of the monumental burial mounds that surrounded the site. By last count, there are 124 monumental burial mounds - burial mounds of the royal family and the elite, their associates, dating between the ninth century and the sixth century B.C."

Gordion itself - which surrounds the monumental Midas mound and encompasses residential and work districts, many mounds, roads, fortifications, and other relics of settlement - is about four times the size of Troy.

Midas ruled Phrygia for about four decades, ascending after the death of his father and remaining on the throne until about 700 B.C.E. His reign marks Phrygia's greatest period. The kingdom dominated much of Anatolia in what is now Turkey - from Sardis and Lydia in the west to the Assyrian kingdom in the east.

The royal city was a center for textiles and trade, and Midas apparently delighted in poking at the mighty Assyrians in battle.

But if there has been little gold found around Gordion, how did the king become associated with the "golden touch"?

Rose says the remains of Midas' father were wrapped in a shroud coated with goethite, an iron oxide with a golden hue.

"We found this golden color, this goethite, applied to other elite textiles and tapestries on the site," he said. "So it looks as if this was a trademark of the elite, these golden clothes that they would wear, and thus, perhaps the origin of the story of the golden touch attached to Midas."

The king supposedly transferred the golden touch to the Pactolus river running through Sardis, to the west, a river containing rich gold deposits. That gold was panned using sheepskins, with gold dust and flakes adhering to the fibers of the skin. Hence, the "golden fleece" so sought after by Jason and the Argonauts.

Following Midas' rule, Phrygia went into decline and was absorbed by Lydia at the end of the seventh century B.C.E. Alexander the Great came along in 333 B.C.E., cut the legendary Gordian Knot, and did battle with the Persians, who then controlled the area.

Midas was but a memory and a legend, which is where he is to this day. Despite excavation and analysis for decades, the tomb of Midas himself has not been found.

"We've never been able to identify which of the 124 burial mounds Midas is buried in," Rose said. "It's inconceivable that he's not buried at Gordion. This was his capital city. One day it will happen."

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