Published: Oct. 6, 2022

King Midas of the Golden Touch in Context: Death, Belief, Behavior, and Society in Ancient Phrygia

Professor Beth Dusinberre

Wednesday, October 12 at 7:00pm
Paleontology Hall (CU Museum of Natural History) or via Zoom
Free and Open to Public
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ABSTRACT

The spectacular burial tumuli at Gordion (Turkey), the capital of ancient Phrygia and seat of the legendary (but historical) King Midas of the Golden Touch, are presented in this lecture by CU's Elspeth Dusinberre. Its focus will be on the tombs dating from ca. 850-525 BCE, beginning with Gordion’s oldest burial tumuli and then look at the largest, the so-called Midas Monument, before exploring the last century or so of tumulus construction. The later tombs display radical changes that reflect Gordion’s complex and shifting society and illuminate issues of power structures and display, gender, burial customs, afterlife beliefs in ancient Phrygia.

Professor Beth Dusinberre
is Professor of Distinction and Associate Chair of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Classics at the University of Colorado Boulder. She's the author of Aspects of Empire in Achaemenid Sardis (Cambridge 2003), Gordion Seals and Sealings: Individuals and Society (Philadelphia 2005), and Empire, Authority, and Autonomy in Achaemenid Anatolia (Cambridge 2013), the last of which won theJames R. Wiseman Award from the Archaeological Institute of America in 2015.
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