Today we visited Phrygian burial sites in the Phrygian Valley and Midas Şehri (Midas City).  For those of you who don’t know anything about the Phrygians, you can find information on them in your encyclopedia of choice.  Just kidding! Don’t worry – I’m not going to make anyone do any homework!  The Phrygians were people who had migrated to Central Anatolia from Thrace in Greece about 3000 years ago.  They set up a kingdom around 1200 BC, and established a civilization that was influenced by Greek, Hittite, and Urartian cultures; however, the Phrygian culture was unique, as they spoke their own language and had their own gods and goddesses.  The most famous, ok, really the only famous Phrygian king was King Midas, who ruled from about 725-675 BC.  Around this time, the Phrygians enjoyed the peak of their influence and cultural achievements.   The Phrygians are credited with inventing a bunch of musical instruments, like cymbals, flutes and lyres, which were staples in Ancient bands. In art, they are credited with originating  the frieze.  To make a long story short, the Phrygians were a pretty cool and inventive group of people that I’d never heard of before, and am willing to bet that you hadn’t, either.

Oh, and to dispel any cries of “you’re wrong, I know quite a bit about King Midas, so there,” I would point out that while the Phrygians had a king whose name was Midas, there were actually a bunch of Phrygian kings named Midas, and I’m betting none of them could turn whatever they touched into gold.  However, it is apparently pretty common to attribute things to the legendary King Midas that shouldn’t be.  Midas City was named after the king because it was believed that this  was his tomb.  In fact, it turns out that there was a mistranslation of one of the Phrygian words, so that instead of Midas, the word is really a variant of the local name of the goddess Cybele, the mother earth goddess worshipped by the Phrygians.  So they named an entire town after what they thought was Midas’ tomb, but was really a monument dedicated to a goddess. To make matters even worse, another attributed tomb of Midas, which we didn’t visit, was also recently found not to have been the king’s tomb, as it dates from about two or three hundred years away from his rule. Whoops! 

While these tombs, and the history behind them, were quite interesting, we actually didn’t spend much time looking at them, because the area was excellent for climbing around and exploring! These tomb remnants in particular

were great fun to climb- they had lots of cracks to shimmy through and ledges to pick your way across. In other words, an amazing playground for college students!  Of course, we were taking the utmost safety precautions and were under no circumstances standing too close to the edges 

 or engaging in unsafe behavior.  So don’t worry, moms and dads! 

Our guide told us that the rock looks like a woman about to be eaten by a wolf. I don’t really see the wolf, but the woman is definitely there.  What do you think?

There were other quite exciting areas to poke around and explore, which we were all very happy about.  Today was our last day of field trips before we arrive in Ankara, so we were glad to kick back a bit in an area absolutely devoid of other tourists.  In fact, there weren’t very many people there at all, including the locals.  We got to walk around the small village of Midas City, which looked like it couldn’t have had more than 150 people living in it, for a bit in order to find some bathrooms, and we were all quite interested to see what real rural village life was like in Turkey. 

  Mostly what we were able to see were the outsides of buildings and the streets, and, of course, the various kinds of livestock running around.  The part that struck me the most was probably the well in front of the village’s mosque.  It was an actual well, not a water pump, complete with a hand crank and metal bucket. For me, it was definitely the quintessential symbol of what life in this village is probably like. While it was only a quick glimpse, I think that the general impression that we got from the town was that, while the people in these areas may not have all of the creature comforts as those living in the cities, they aren’t living in hopeless, abject poverty, either.  All of the villagers we came in contact with seemed to be pretty contented and happy, which I think we were glad to see, as well.

Anyways, since we were practically the only people there at all, so we had free reign of the tombs, cliffs, and surrounding areas.  We found a cave to explore   and followed a cow path up to the top of the cliffs   where we got a beautiful view of the surrounding countryside.    This was one of my favorite parts: the view was gorgeous and the wind was really strong, which is something that I really enjoy.  In fact, standing near the edge reminded a few of us of that scene in the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice, where Elizabeth is standing on the edge of a cliff in the north of England.  Behind this point, up around the other side of the cliff top, there were an old Phrygian throne and trade road. It was also apparently  the habitation area, although there isn’t much to show except pot sherds.  Unfortunately, I didn’t make it up that far to take any pictures, as we had to leave before I got up there.  Overall, I think that Midas City was one of the groups’ favorite places, if not our actual favorite.  It was a chance to kick back a bit before heading off to school, and I heard most of the group mention that they really wished that we’d had a lot more time than the two hours we’d had there, and also that they wished we could go back again to explore and climb around more.  I know I’d like some more time there!