Kathryn R. Morgan

Gordion, the royal city of the mytho-historic King Midas of Phrygia in central Türkiye, has seen intensive archaeological excavation for 75 years. Yet despite a wealth of evidence, there exists strikingly little scholarly consensus as to the extent or duration of Midas’ kingdom, its political organization, or the nature of its interactions with other Iron Age Mediterranean groups and polities. “Beyond Midas” reveals the complex interplay of scholarly preoccupations and disciplinary biases that have shaped models of east-west interaction, and with them the understanding of the Phrygian state, as well as its Anatolian contemporaries. Drawing on social theory, emerging indigenous textual sources, Greek and Near Eastern historical traditions, and the archaeological record, “Beyond Midas” outlines a framework for a new "thick history" of Phrygia in Anatolia and the wider Mediterranean world.