Explore Ancient Anatolia

Detail of drawing on ancient Phrygian pottery found at tumulus P at Gordium, Phrygian capital, near tumulus of King Midas, on exhibition at Ankara Museum of Anatolian Civilization, one of the finest examples of ceramic art of the Phrygian period ... More PHOTO: Phrygian Art by ancient-anatolia.blogspot.com

Lion figure on ancient Phrygian pottery found at tumulus P at Gordium, Phrygian capital, near tumulus of King Midas, on exhibition at Ankara Museum of Anatolian Civilization, one of the finest examples of ceramic art of the Phrygian period.

Bull figures: Detail of drawing on ancient Phrygian pottery at Ankara Museum of Anatolian Civilization.

In Greek mythology, Midas is popularly remembered for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold: the Midas touch. In alchemy, the transmutation of an object into gold is known as chrysopoeia. Midas was king of Pessinus, a city of Phrygia, who as a child was adopted by the king Gordias and Cybele, the goddess whose consort he was, and who by some accounts was the goddess-mother of Midas himself. Some accounts place the youth of Midas in Macedonian Bermion In Mygdonia Midas was known for his garden of roses: Herodotus remarks on the settlement of the ancient kings of Macedon on the slopes of Mount Bermion "the place called the garden of Midas son of Gordias, where roses grow of themselves, each bearing sixty blossoms and of surpassing fragrance. In this garden, according to the Macedonian story, Silenos was taken captive." According to Iliad (v.860), he had one son, Lityerses, the demonic reaper of men; but in some variations of the myth he had a daughter, Zoë or ...

Ancient Galatia was an area in the highlands of central Anatolia in modern Turkey. Galatia was bounded on the north by Bithynia and Paphlagonia, on the east by Pontus, on the south by Lycaonia and Cappadocia, and on the west by the remainder of Phrygia, the eastern part of which the Gauls had invaded. The modern capital of Turkey, Ankara (ancient Ancyra), was also the capital of ancient Galatia.

Temple of Athene at Ancient Troy The Trojan War was a war waged, according to legend, against the city of Troy in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), by the armies of the Achaeans, after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, of which the two most famous are the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer. The Iliad relates a part of the last year of the siege of Troy, and the Odyssey describes the journey home of Odysseus, one of the Achaean leaders. Other parts of the story were narrated in a cycle of epic poems, which has only survived in fragments. Episodes from the war provided material for Greek tragedy and other works of Greek literature, and Roman poets like Virgil and Ovid.