Explore North Central Anatolia
Stretching between Seyitgazi and Afyon is a wonderful valley full of eerie rock formations, and dotted with Phrygian tombs, temples and fortifications. Midas Şehri is by far the most accessible and substantial Phrygian sight; its name means “City of Midas” in Turkish, but though there’s no specific Midas connection, for a while it was supposed that one of the Phrygian kings of that name was buried here.
The site itself comprises the sketchy ruins of a Phrygian city set on top of a thirty-metre-high plateau whose steep rock sides have been carved with elaborate decorative facades. The one on the northwestern face of the plateau has come to be known as the Midas tomb; following around to the west from here leads to more niches carved in the rock, a number of rock tombs and an incomplete relief.
Access to the upper part of the plateau and the remains of the Phrygian citadel is via a flight of steps on the eastern side. Near the top of the steps are a number of altars and tombs, some of which bear inscriptions and decorative reliefs. In the southwestern part of the citadel is a rock throne, a kind of stepped altar on which the figure of a deity would have been placed. The upper part of this throne has a clear inscription and crude decorative scratchings. Elsewhere a few fragments of the citadel’s defensive wall survive.
