Professor C. Brian Rose | University of Pennsylvania

Exploring the Royal Capital of King Midas: Penn’s Excavations at Gordion (Turkey)

Located approximately 100 km southwest of Ankara, Gordion was continually inhabited for nearly 4000 years and is one of the most important archaeological sites in the Near East. Its heyday was in the first half of the first millennium BCE when it was the royal capital of the powerful Iron Age kingdom known as Phrygia to the Greeks and Mushki to the neighboring Assyrian empire. Gordion’s fabled king Midas, in myth cursed with asses’ ears and the “golden touch,” was actually an historical figure, and the monumental burial mound (Tumulus MM) that bears his name was probably one of his first building projects. This talk presents an overview of the most recent fieldwork conducted under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania, including new discoveries within the “Midas Mound” and a new circuit of fortifications revealed by remote sensing.

About the speaker

C. Brian Rose is the James B. Pritchard Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania in the Classical Studies Department and the Graduate Group in the Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World. He is also Peter C. Ferry Curator-in-Charge of the Mediterranean Section of the Penn Museum, and was the museum’s Deputy Director from 2008-2011. He has served as the President of the Archaeological Institute of America (2007-2011) and currently serves as director of the Gordion(Turkey) excavations. From 2003 to 2007, he directed the Granicus River Valley Survey Project, which focused on recording and mapping the Graeco-Persian tombs that dominate northwestern Turkey, and he served as co-director of excavations at Troy between 1988 and 2012. He is the author or editor of seven books and over 70 articles, as well as co-editor of 19 volumes of the results of the Troy Excavations.

About Dr Anthony McNicoll (1943-1985)

The Anthony McNicoll Visiting Lectureship was established through the generosity of family and friends, and aims to bring to Australia internationally recognised scholars whose areas of study are representative of Dr McNicoll’s wide scholarly interest.

Dr Anthony McNicoll was senior lecturer in Middle Eastern Archaeology at the University of Sydney from 1976 until his untimely death in 1985. In the classroom, the field, and through his publications, Anthony McNicoll inspired a new generation of archaeologists while earning the respect and friendship of his academic peers.

After gaining a doctorate from Oxford University on the subject of Hellenistic fortifications, Anthony McNicoll was appointed Director of the British Institute of Afghan Studies in Kabul (1974-75). He came to Sydney with a solid background in field archaeology learnt in Turkey, Iran, Bahrain, Afghanistan and Jordan; this expertise he readily passed on to his students while Co-Director, with Professor J. Basil Hennessy, of the University’s excavations at Teleilat Ghassul and Pella in Jordan.The Anthony McNicoll Visiting Lectureship 2021 is proudly hosted by the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sydney.

………

The 2021 Anthony McNicoll lecture series is hosted by the Near Eastern Archaeology Foundation (NEAF).

Enquiries and RSVP:
Click here to register
P | +61 2 9351 4151
F | +61 9114 0921
Click here to email