Gordium was the capital of ancient Phrygia, modern Yassihüyük. It is located about 70-80 km southwest of modern Ankara (capital of Turkey) near town Polatli. The ancient city is also called Gordiyon in Turkey. Ancient Royal road between Lydia and Assyria/Babylonia. ... Ancient Royal road between Lydia and Assyria/Babylonia. ... In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of the Anatolian highlands, part of modern Turkey, from ca. ... Ankara from the Atakule Tower, looking N-NE Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the countrys second largest city after Ä°stanbul. ...

Gordium is situated on the place where the ancient Royal road between Lydia and Assyria/Babylonia crosses the river Sangarius (Sakarya), which flows from central Anatolia to the Black Sea. Remains of the road are still visible. In the 12th century BCE, the city became the capital of the Phrygians, a Thracian tribe that had invaded and settled in Asia. They created a large kingdom, that occupied the greater part of Turkey west of the river Halys. The kings of Phrygia built large tombs near Gordium. These wooden chambers were covered by artificial hills that are usually called tumuli. There are about 80 of them. In the eighth century, the citadel was fortified and in the next century, the town became very large indeed. A palace was built in the citadel. To the south of it was a lower city, and a large suburb was to be found on the other bank of the Sangarius. The most famous king of Phrygia was Midas. (Contemporary Assyrian sources call him Mit-ta-a.) During his reign, a nomadic tribe called Cimmerians invaded Turkey, and in 710/709, Midas was forced to ask for help from the Assyrian king Sargon II. However, this did not prevent the Cimmerian invasion. In 696/695, Midas committed suicide after a lost battle. There are traces of destruction at Gordium, but they may be older than the attack by the Cimmerians. The Sakarya (Greek Σαγγάριος, Latinized as Sangarius) is a river in Asia Minor. ... Anatolia (Greek: ανατολή anatolē or anatolí) is a region of Southwest Asia which corresponds today to the Asian portion of Turkey. ... In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of the Anatolian highlands, part of modern Turkey, from ca. ... A tomb is a small building (or vault) for the remains of the dead, with walls, a roof, and (if it is to be used for more than one corpse) a door. ... Alternate meanings of barrow: see Barrow-in-Furness for the town of Barrow in Cumbria, England; also Barrow, Alaska in the U.S.; also River Barrow in Ireland. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... This article concerns the Assyrian people. ... The Cimmerians were an ancient people of Iranian origin, who lived in the south of modern-day Ukraine (Crimea and northern Black sea coast) and Russia (Black Sea coast and Caucasus), at least in the 8th and 7th century BC. Little is known about them, but they were mentioned in...

The so-called 'mound of Midas', the greatest tumulus near Gordium, was excavated in 1957. Its diameter is a little short of 300 meters and it is 43 meters high. In the wooden chamber, which measured 5 × 6 meters, a man's corpse was found, and even the contents of his last dinner could be reconstructed. The tumulus also contained one of the oldest alphabetic inscriptions outside Phoenicia (c.740 BCE). On chronological grounds, the possibility that the dead man was indeed king Midas can be excluded. He may have been the famous king's father or grandfather. After half a century of confusion, western Turkey was reunited by the Lydians, whose first great king was Gyges (c.680-c.644). One of his successors, Alyattes (c.600-560), built a massive fortress on a hill near the citadel. When Lydia was conquered by the Persian king Cyrus the Great and its last king Croesus killed (547), a Persian garrison took possession of this fortress. Gordium was now included in the satrapy of Greater Phrygia. The garrison stayed there until the last months of 334, when the Macedonian commander Parmenion captured the city. During the winter, his king Alexander the Great joined him. (For the famous story about Alexander cutting the so-called Gordian Knot in the palace, check the link below) Gyges, was the founder of the third or Mermnad dynasty of Lydian kings and reigned from 687 to 652 BC (according to H Gelzer. ... Alyattes II, king of Lydia (619_560 BC), the real founder of the Lydian empire, was the son of Sadyattes, of the house of the Mermnadae. ... Lydia was an ancient kingdom of Asia Minor, known to Homer as Mæonia. ... Cyrus the Great Cyrus II of Persia, widely known as Cyrus the Great, (ca. ... Croesus (the Latin transliteration of the Greek Kροισος, in Persian قارون Qârun), who was legendary for his enormous wealth, was king of Lydia from 560 BC until his defeat by the Persians in about 547 BC. He was the son of Alyattes and continued his fathers policy of conquering... Parmenion (also Parmenio) (c. ... Alexander the Great fighting the Persian king Darius (Pompeii mosaic, from a 3rd century BC original Greek painting, now lost). ... Alexander cuts the Gordian Knot, by Jean-Simon Berthélemy (1743–1811) The Gordian Knot is a metaphor for an intractable problem, solved by a bold stroke (cutting the Gordian knot). The myth it refers to is associated in legend with Alexander the Great. ...

After the troubles following the death of Alexander, Gordium was first ruled by the Seleucid kings of Asia, then by the Celts (the remains of their human sacrifices have been found), then by the Attalid rulers of Pergamum, and eventually by the Romans. It remained one of the most important commercial centers in the region, but the size of the city itself diminished. The old center -citadel and lower town- was abandoned after the Roman conquest in 189 BCE; only the western suburbs remained occupied in the Roman era. The Seleucid Empire was one of several political states founded after the death of Alexander the Great, whose generals squabbled over the division of Alexanders empire. ... A Celtic cross. ... The Attalid dynasty was a Greek dynasty that ruled the city of Pergamon after the death of Lysimachus, a general of Alexander the Great. ... Pergamon or Pergamum (modern day Bergama in Turkey) was a Greek city, in northwestern Anatolia, 16 miles from the Aegean Sea, located on a promontory on the north side of the river Caicus (modern day Bakir), that became an important kingdom during the Hellenistic period, under the Attalid dynasty, 282... Ancient Rome was a civilization that existed in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East between 753 BC and its downfall in AD 476. ...

External links

• http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander_t06.html

• Articles on Ancient Anatolia (Source link of this article, slightly edited here)