Middle and Late Phrygian Gordion

Iranica Antiqua, vol. XXXIV, 1999

FROM PHRYGIAN CAPITAL TO ACHAEMENID ENTREPOT: MIDDLE AND LATE PHRYGIAN GORDION

BY Mary M. VOIGT College of William and Mary

T. Cuyler YOUNG, Jr. University of Toronto

Introduction In the early Spring of 1960 David Stronach and Cuyler Young stood on the edge of the Toll-i Takht at about four in the afternoon and looked out at the Achaemenid architecture of Pasargadae. David was fully recovered from his queasy tummy of the night before, spent in a tea house in Dehbid, and his natural enthusiasm for all matters archaeological was in full cry. Max Mallowan, not yet knighted but firmly in control of the Board of Trustees of the British Institute of Persian Studies in Teheran, had suggested that the Institute’s first excavation in Iran be an important historical site like Pasargadae. Stronach was keen. Certainly he was well trained for the task, having dug at Nimrud with Mallowan and at Charsada with Wheeler, though his work at Ras al’Amiya in Iraq and at Yarim Tepe in northeastern Iran had equally prepared him for a major prehistoric project. Pasargadae it was. On the plain below stood the remains of the Tomb of Cyrus, Palace S and P, the Zendan-i Suleiman, and the Sacred Enclosure. Behind David was the Toll-i Takht (Takht-i Madar-i Suleiman) and to the east, north and south the barely visible walls of the fortification enclosure joining the Takht. In three seasons of excavation Stronach would clarify the nature and function of these monuments, would uncover a number of structures never seen before, and would put the Achaemenids back on the intellectual map of Near Eastern archaeology. On the drive to Shiraz the Marv Dasht plain was covered with spring flowers, much to Stronach’s delight. The experience was, perhaps, the inspiration for his later discoveries of the great gardens of Parsargadae 192 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 1. Sherd with an Achaemenid style figure painted in red and brown on buff found in a YHSS 4/Late Phrygian context at Gordion.

— perhaps the oldest in Iran and the origin of our vision of Paradise. The latter part of the next afternoon was spent rug shopping in Shiraz. To this day David remains fascinated by rugs, gardens, and all matters Achaemenid. It has been a given of Achaemenid history that the Iranians (Persians, Medes and others) did not have any influence on the material culture of the conquered peoples of the first Iranian Empire. Recent excavations at Yassihöyük in central Anatolia have, in part, been dedicated to testing whether this “given” is in fact true. The Achaemenids did indeed have an impact on the local material culture of the subject peoples, however slightly those peoples may have been subject (Fig. 1). This Iranian influence is most easily seen in pottery, weapons, horse trappings, and other small finds from Late Phrygian Gordion, but the setting for these small finds — the architecture and the stratigraphy of that architecture — are of PHRYGIAN GORDION 193 prime importance. This is what we discuss in this article in a most preliminary way, for, however exciting the small finds and pottery from Stronach’s excavations at Pasargadae may be (and they are), it is his investigations of Achaemenid architecture and the stratigraphy of Pasargadae that warrant the highest regard. Architectural traditions at Gordion were persistent, going back to the early Iron Age when the Phrygians first occupied the site, and continuing well into Hellenistic times. Late Phrygian Gordion, which corresponds roughly to the period of the Achaemenid occupation, presents us with a variety of architectural styles reflecting the international nature of the times. While we can point to nothing architecturally in this period that is distinctively Iranian (e.g. a parallel to Palace P at Pasargadae), things change and become much more eclectic than in Middle Phrygian times. Outsiders were having an impact. These outsiders, in part undoubtedly Ira- nians, were certainly having an influence on the nature and function of the site, regardless of what kinds of buildings they were living in. This, then, is the setting for a future analysis of ceramics and small finds from Late Phrygian Gordion that will identify the distinctively Iranian, which perhaps we will have ready for Stronach’s seventieth birthday.

Archaeological Research at Gordion The mound called Yassihöyük was convincingly identified as historic Gordion by Alfred Körte nearly a century ago (Körte and Körte 1904:28- 35). The key elements in his argument were: 1) the match between Yassi- höyük and descriptions of the ancient city provided by historical texts, especially Strabo’s location of Gordion on the Sangarios/Sakarya river, at a point “equally distant from the Pontic and Cilician Seas” (XII 567/8); and 2) the presence of archaeological remains (architecture and tombs) that were appropriate for the first millennium Phrygian capital in scale and date (Körte and Körte 1904). This identification has never been seriously challenged, and has been supported by later discoveries including Phrygian inscriptions — none, however, bearing the name “Gordion” (see Mellink 1991). Modern archaeological research at the site began in 1950 under the direction of Rodney Stuart Young, sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. From 1950 to 1973 Young, Machteld Mellink, G. Roger Edwards, and their many talented students 194 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 2. Map of Gordion showing major topographic zones of the site. PHRYGIAN GORDION 195

Fig. 3. Plan of Yassihöyük showing excavated areas. cleared over 2.5 hectares on Yassihöyük,1 explored fortifications on the adjacent Küçük Höyük; and excavated rich burials placed within tumuli that dot the hills surrounding the settlement (Figs. 2-3).2 On Yassihöyük,

1 Yassihöyük has often been equated with the entire ancient city rather than with the central zone of a larger settlement. In order to distinguish it from other topographic areas archaeologists working at the site have referred to Yassihöyük as the “City Mound” (equally confusing) or the “Citadel Mound” (because of the heavy fortification walls surrounding the palace quarter for much of the site’s history). With the clear definition of two central mounds in the Middle and Late Phrygian periods (YHSS 5-4) and perhaps earlier, a shift of terminology is needed. In this article (pending discussions of terminology with other members of the Gordion Project), we will refer to the modern mound as Yassihöyük, and the two elevated areas of YHSS 5-4 as the “Eastern Mound” and “Western Mound”. 2 For a recent summary of archaeology at Gordion with key references see Voigt 1997. 196 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Young was primarily interested in the burned remains of a palace complex that he identified as the city of King Midas and dated c. 700 BC. Settlements overlying the Gordion “Destruction Level” were exposed and removed, but because of a highly complex stratigraphy, not well understood. Earlier phases of occupation, critical for an understanding of the emergence of the Phrygian state and the relationship of this process to the fall of the Hittite Empire, were known only from very small soundings. This phase of excavation ended with Young’s death in 1974, and for nearly 15 years the efforts of Gordion Project members were devoted to publication (e.g. DeVries 1990; Gunter 1991; Kohler 1995; Roller 1987; Romano 1995; Sams 1994; Young et al 1981). In 1988, the University of Pennsylvania resumed an active program of excavation and regional survey at Gordion under the direction of Mary Voigt.3 Voigt’s initial research goals were the definition of a detailed stratigraphic sequence for the site from the Bronze Age to the most recent occupation; the recovery of information on the Bronze Age-Iron Age transition; and a study of environment and settlement patterns through archaeological and ethnobotanical survey. These goals were achieved in 1988 and 1989 through the excavation of two soundings within and adjacent to the main area excavated by Rodney Young (Fig. 3) and the initiation of a regional surface survey (Voigt 1994, 1997; Voigt and Henrickson in press; Sams and Voigt 1990, 1991; Sumner and Dickey 1993). The definition of chronological units or phases within the Yassihöyük Stratigraphic Sequence or YHSS was based on discontinuities in depositional processes and/or architecture, as well as other aspects of material culture in the excavated sample (Table 1). The soundings not only provided ceramic markers that served as a chronological control for excavation in other areas and the regional survey (Henrickson 1993, 1994), but also yielded faunal and flo- ral remains and manufacturing debris that could be used to outline changes in the environment and subsistence system (Miller 1993; Zeder and Arter 1996). In 1993, a second cycle of research began, this time focussed on an examination of changes in settlement organization, and on the impact of the Achaemenid conquest on Phrygian Gordion. Excavation was to be carried

3 Project Director since 1988 is G. Kenneth Sams who is directly responsible for site and artifact conservation programs, and for publication of research carried out between 1950 and 1973. PHRYGIAN GORDION 197

Table 1. The Yass∞ıhöyük Stratigraphic Sequence (YHSS)

YHSS Phase Period Name Approximate Dates 1 Medieval 10-12th century AD? 2 Roman 1st century - 3rd century AD 3 Hellenistic 330-150 BC 4 Late Phrygian 550-330 BC 5 Middle Phrygian 700-550 BC 6 Early Phrygian 950-700 BC 7 Early Iron Age 1100-950 BC 9-8 Late Bronze Age 1400-1200 BC 10 Middle Bronze Age 1600(?)-1400 BC out within three poorly known topographic areas of the site: 1) the western half of Yassihöyük; 2) the virtually unknown Lower Town to the south; and 3) a newly discovered Outer Town located to the north and west of Yassihöyük (Fig. 2). This work was conducted between 1993 and 1997, with the participation of a Canadian team led by Cuyler Young. In this paper we will draw on the results of nearly 50 years of archaeological research in order to outline the form and organization of Gordion during the Middle and Late Phrygian periods, c. 700 to 350 BC. More specifically, we will: 1) describe what we know about settlement pattern, and especially domestic architecture during both Middle Phrygian/YHSS Phase 5 and Late Phrygian/YHSS Phase 4 Gordion; and 2) assess the degree of architectural and organizational continuity or discontinuity between these periods as an initial indication of the impact of the Achaemenid conquest on Phrygian Gordion.

History of Settlement from the Late Eighth to Fourth Century BC 1. The Middle Phrygian Period, YHSS 5 The Early Iron Age/YHSS 7 and Earliest Phrygian/YHSS 6B settlements are known solely from limited excavation on the eastern half of Yassi- höyük (Voigt 1994: 267-272, Fig. 25.1, Pl 25.2-25.4; Sams and Voigt 1995: 370-374, Figs. 2-7; see also Gunter 1991). From the eighth through the early sixth century BC this part of the settlement was walled and filled 198 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 4. Plan of the Early Phrygian/YHSS 6A palace quarter on the Eastern Mound; areas labelled “Upper” and “Lower” Trenches are the 1988-89 stratigraphic sounding that established the Yassihöyük Stratigraphic Sequence. with large, formal buildings with a megaron plan (YHSS 6-5 or the Early and Middle Phrygian periods; Figs. 4-8). Architecture alone suggests that this was the palace quarter of the Phrygian capital, an inference that is supported for the late eighth century (YHSS 6A) by building contents, preserved when much of this area burned (DeVries 1980:34 ff, with refs; Sams 1995). After the fire the palace quarter was rebuilt in a spectacular demonstration of the degree to which the rulers of Gordion could control labor and the acquisition of construction materials. A thick layer of earth PHRYGIAN GORDION 199

Fig. 5. View of the Early Phrygian/YHSS 6A palace quarter, showing Terrace Building 2A in the left foreground (room with scale).

Fig. 6. North balk of Operation 1 within the Upper Trench Sounding, showing relationship between the burned Early Phrygian/YHSS 6A deposit and the thick layer of Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 fill above. The ashlar wall that once rested on the YHSS 5 rubble foundation (the west wall of Building I:2) was robbed in Hellenistic/YHSS 3 times. 200 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 7. Stratigraphic section, north balk of Operation 1; the upper drawing indicates major breaks with the YHSS sequence. PHRYGIAN GORDION 201

Fig. 8. Plan of the Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 palace quarter showing location of Upper Trenches. or “fill” was laid above the palace quarter, and new ashlar buildings with deep rubble foundations set into the fill were constructed (YHSS 5). A question that has troubled two generations of archaeologists working at Gordion is the date of the Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 rebuilding.4 In 1989,

4 The date of the “rebuilding” has been subject to an ongoing process of revision since 1950, resulting in a chronological and terminological trap for the unwary. Firm archaeological evidence for the absolute date of the ashlar structures has been slow in coming for two reasons. First, radiocarbon dating of the period from c 800 to 400 BC is not precise 202 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr. excavation of one room of the Destruction Level/YHSS 6A5 exposed stratigraphy suggesting that the rebuilding process in that area of the settlement

due to the nature of the calibration curves (Kunniholm in press; Pearson and Stuiver 1986: Fig. 2A; Stuiver and Becker 1986: Fig. 1F). Second, the rebuilt structures on the Eastern Mound were in use for a long time and then badly pillaged by later occupants of the site, resulting in stratigraphic problems that are the most difficult that either Voigt or Young has ever encountered. In the interest of clarifying usage for those interested in this level of the site, a brief and simplified history of terms is presented here. Rodney Young initially attributed the reconstruction to Persian sponsorship, and thus placed his “archaic” level within the second half of the sixth century BC (1951, 1953) and he soon began to refer to architectural elements within this level as the “Persian Gate” and the “Persian Court” (Young 1955). By the early 1970s, however, he assigned the rebuilding to the first half of the sixth century (Young 1976:360), and subsequent publication by other scholars associated with the Gordion Project reverted to Young’s earlier terminology, referring to the rebuilding as the “Archaic Level.” In his 1990 synthesis of excavation carried out between 1969 and 1973, DeVries introduced a new chronological framework for Gordion, and assigned the rebuilt palace quarter to the “Middle Phrygian Period;” he supported Young’s date for the rebuilding with new ceramic and numismatic evidence, and set the boundary between Middle and Late Phrygian periods as a “leveling” or demolition of the ashlar buildings which he placed in the early 4th century BC (DeVries 1990:391-392); this name for the rebuilding was initially suggested by G. Roger Edwards in recognition of the continuity of settlement layout between Destruction Level and reconstruction (Edwards 1959:264). When the Yassihöyük Stratigraphic Sequence was proposed in 1990, Voigt used DeVries’ terminology for the Middle and Late Phrygian periods, but revised DeVries dates. The date for the beginning of the Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 phase was still set by its superposition on the “Kimmerian Destruction Level”/YHSS 6A, but stratigraphic considerations ruled out a long gap between destruction and reconstruction. The new, more precise stratigraphic sequence, and the occurrence of well-dated Attic imports within this sequence provided convincing evidence that the demolition of the ashlar buildings, i.e. the beginning of the Late Phrygian/YHSS4 phase, was well underway by 500 BC. Greek imports have recently been used to suggest a revised date for the start of the Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 phase. As stated above, most scholars have attributed the destruction of the YHSS 6A palace quarter to Kimmerian invaders, and thus dated the fire to either 696 or 676 BC, depending on which of two much later sources they found most consistent with their reading of the archaeological data (e.g. Boessert 1993; Mellink 1991: 624; Sams 1995). Accepting the equation of archaeological remains with historical event, the reconstruction could not be earlier than 676 BC. A revision of the date for the destruction to the last years of the eighth century BC has now been suggested by Keith DeVries based on the occurrence of Corinthian pottery dated c. 720-690 BC in Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 contexts (DeVries 1997a). Note that DeVries prefers a date toward the end of the seventh century for these contexts based on associated material, but places the reconstruction an unknown number of years earlier perhaps within the reign of the leg- endary King Midas. 5 Room TB2A in Operation 1 was excavated by Dr. Mitchell Rothman of Widener Uni- versity in 1989. PHRYGIAN GORDION 203 began almost as soon as the ruins had cooled near the end of the eighth century BC (Voigt 1994:272-273, Pl. 25.6.1-2). A reanalysis of Young’s excavated data coupled with new information has shown that in other areas, the process of laying earth fills above the Early Phrygian/YHSS 6A settlement had begun before large areas of the palace quarter were destroyed by fire. Evidence supporting this interpretation was initially provided by Keith DeVries, who redated terrace walls and fills in the area between the massive Early Phrygian gate and Megarons 1 and 9 based on the presence of scorchmarks (DeVries 1990: 387-388, Fig. 22). Excavation in 1993 (Sams and Voigt 1995: Fig. 2) showed that this pre-destruction remodel- ling project also involved the removal of large stone slabs that had paved the courtyard just inside the gate during the final Early Phrygian construction phase (YHSS 6A). A scorched earth surface cleared to the east of Megaron 1 (and just to the north of the “unfinished project”) was at the same level as the base of nearby paving blocks that remained in situ along the southeastern edge of the YHSS 6A court (see Young 1957: Fig. 3 for limits of preserved paving in this area). This continuity in building process between the Early and Middle Phrygian periods explains something that has always been a problem for those favoring an external origin or stimu- lus for the rebuilding — the Middle Phrygian replication of the plan of the Early Phrygian destruction level. After the fire, standing walls of the Early Phrygian/YHSS 6A buildings were systematically taken down so that the tops of wall stubs were at approximately the same height (Fig. 5). In Terrace Building 2A, slabs from the top of the walls as well as a few mud bricks were thrown into the room above the fragile burned reeds of the roof (Figs. 6-7; see also Voigt 1994: Pl. 25.5, 25.6.1-2). This process created a level platform which then weathered for an indeterminate period, one that must have varied in length from one area to the next as rebuilding proceeded across the settlement. An earth fill — usually sterile clay, but sometimes soil with churned cultural material — was then laid on top of this platform, with rubble building foundations set into the fill as it rose6. The walls of the new buildings were

6 The fill material need not have been transported over any great distance. Some of the clay fill is alluvial, and trace element analysis has shown that it is from the Sakarya. Ben Marsh has suggested that the Phrygians may have been carrying out hydraulic work at the time of the reconstruction (e.g. digging irrigation canals and/or drainage ditches), and simply used spoil heaps from excavations along the river as part of the Middle Phrygian/ 204 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 9. Plan of Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 Building I:2 and attached cellar. The thick wall leading off to the west is a later addition to Building I:2; both construction techniques and stratigraphy date both this later wall and the cellar to the south within YHSS 5. PHRYGIAN GORDION 205 of ashlar blocks, often white but also red or yellowish green. These colors were used most effectively in the rebuilt gateway into the palace quarter, where visitors initially faced a stepped glacis made up of white, red, and yellow-green stone blocks set in broad vertical strips. Inside the Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 palace quarter lay a succession of two courts faced with megarons and lines of similar buildings to the east and west (Fig. 8). These structures were badly robbed in later times, so that in many cases their plan can be reconstructed only from their rubble foundations. An exception, a context that provides rare evidence for domestic architecture and activities within the YHSS 5 palace quarter, was excavated in 1989 (Figs. 8-9). Building I:27 lay within a row of structures to the west of the two courts; its function presumably duplicated that of its burned predecessor (Terrace Building or TB 3) which was filled with evidence for food processing and preparation (Young 1960:241-243, Fig. 16). Operation 2 in the Upper Trench sounding8 revealed a small subterranean chamber attached to the western end of Building I:2, part of the original Middle Phrygian construction, with fingers of clay fill extending between the stones in its rubble walls (Figs. 9-11). Slots set into the walls and post holes in the clay floor provide evidence for the use of wood as wall and roof supports. An oven that was rebuilt several times was set into a bay next to a stairway made of wide stone slabs leading to the building proper. This stairway was eventually blocked and the chamber was filled with debris including a large and diverse sample of Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 ceramics (Henrickson 1994:111-113) Other domestic structures that seemed to date within the Middle Phry- gian period had been excavated by Rodney Young along the western edge of Yassihöyük. Young’s 1950 “South Trench” (Fig. 3), an extension of a sounding made by the Körte Brothers, exposed buildings with stone foundations and mudbrick superstructures. One of our research goals in 1988-89

YHSS 5 construction project. YHSS 5 fill containing cultural material, the latter often dated to the Bronze Age, presumably represents the use of mounded archaeological sites in the area around Gordion. 7 “Building I” was initially interpreted as a single anomalous structure made up of a series of long rooms set side by side (DeVries 1990:Fig. 26). Excavation in 1989 and a re- examination of Young’s evidence shows that the links between long rooms were late, and that originally there had been two “normal” megarons, now labelled Building I:1 and I:2 (Fig. 8). 8 Building I:2 was excavated by Dr. Janet Jones of Bucknell University in 1989. 206 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 10. Cellar attached to Building I:2, looking west. The northern walls of this building were heavily robbed in YHSS 4/Late Phrygian times, and a clay bench in the northern niche of the structure (right) was partially removed before this photograph was taken. was to resume excavation in this area in order to obtain a sample of pottery and food debris parallel to that from the Upper Trench sounding to the east, allowing a comparison of contemporary but functionally different buildings. We also wanted to resolve a second problem: the South Trench buildings were at an elevation comparable to that of the Middle Phry- gian/YHSS 5 palace quarter, which rested on 2.5 to 4 meters of fill. Either the dating of the buildings was incorrect, or the Middle Phrygian building project with its distinctive layer of fill was not confined to the palace quarter. Complicating the problem was the presence of a Middle Phrygian surface at a much lower elevation near the center of the present mound: running below and to the west of a wall that enclosed the Eastern Palace quarter during the Middle Phrygian period (and perhaps also during earlier times) was a street (DeVries 1990: Fig. 7, 9).9 Using elevations, and assuming

9 This street was filled in during Hellenistic times, creating the flat surface that char- acterizes Yassihöyük today. PHRYGIAN GORDION 207

Fig. 11. Cellar attached to YHSS 5 Building I:2, looking south. The stairway to the left originally led into Building I:2, but was blocked before the chamber was abandoned. The rubble foundations of the west wall of Building I:2 are visible in the lower left corner of the photo. that the dating of all contexts was correct, the evidence strongly suggested that the central part of the Middle Phrygian city consisted of two topo- graphically distinct elevated areas — an Eastern Mound that supported the walled palace quarter, and a Western Mound supporting buildings of unknown functions. In 1989 we began excavation in order to see what lay on the western side of the central street. Operation 1210 was set within one of the earliest buildings excavated by Young in order to verify its date. Within it we found several floors (the latest of pebble mosaic) and a large storage jar that contained fine pottery vessels with Phrygian graffiti typical of the Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 period (Sams and Voigt 1991: Fig. 14; Henrickson 1994: 111-113,Fig. 10.7b-g, 10.8a). Beneath the earliest floor lay a sterile clay deposit, the Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 fill. Continued excavation in

10 Operation 12 was excavated in 1989 by Timothy Matney, then a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. 208 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 12. Excavated areas within the Northwest Quadrant of Yassihöyük (Rodney Young’s “Southwest Trench”); for location see Fig. 2. Operation 30 is a step trench extending down below modern plain level. PHRYGIAN GORDION 209 this area in 1993 (Operation 17, Fig. 3)11 showed that the fill was more than 5 meters deep, and rested on an outside surface with a large hearth; this surface was dated to the Early Phrygian period by characteristic painted sherds. That this Early Phrygian occupation lay at an elevation that was above that of the eighth century valley floor could be immediately inferred from its elevation, well above the level of the modern plain, which is in turn 4 meters above the ancient plain12. What we had found was an Early Phrygian/YHSS 6 domestic deposit that because of its position was presumably the latest of a series of occupation levels making up a mound; this ancient (Iron Age and perhaps Bronze Age) mound was then buried beneath a clay platform, forming the Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 Western Mound matching the elevated palace quarter or YHSS 5 Eastern Mound. Excavation on the northwest corner of Yassihöyük (“the Northwest Quad- rant”) has confirmed the sequence in Operation 12 and provided more doc- umentation for the size of the Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 Western Mound. Operation 30 (Figs. 3, 12-13) is a step trench on the northwest quadrant of the mound excavated in 199413. Here the 3.5 meter thick YHSS5 clay layer began just above modern plain level, resting on a bed of rubble that is at least 2 meters deep and extends an unknown depth below the modern plain (Sams and Voigt 1996:435-436, Fig. 2-3). Thus in this area, the Iron Age (and probably Bronze Age) mound documented in Operation 12 is encased in the Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 fill, which extended to the north of the elevated area available for construction. Unfortunately, erosion by the modern course of the Sakarya river has removed the outer edge of the Western Mound in the Northwest Quadrant, so that we could not determine whether the fill was walled or faced in some way, for example by pebbles or stone terracing. Some kind of facing would seem necessary for stability, since wherever the YHSS 5 fill has been cut by modern archaeological trenches it soon starts to crumble and erode.

11 The deep sounding in Operation 12, now renamed Operation 17 was carried out by Jülide Aker and Jack Cheng, graduate students at Harvard University. 12 Direct evidence for recent alluvial deposition in the portion of the Sakarya valley around Gordion has been gathered through geomorphological research carried out by Ben Marsh, who discovered the plain of Roman or even later times lying at least 4 meters below modern fields and grazing land (Voigt et al 1997). 13 Operation 30 was excavated by T. Cuyler Young, Jr, with the assistance of Cindy Nimchuk, graduate student at the University of Toronto. 210 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 13. Operation 30, a step trench down the northern edge of Yassihöyük. The trench narrows near the top of the YHSS 5 clay layer, which extends beneath the modern surface in the foreground.

But how was this Western Mound used? The architectural sample is small, but both substantial walls and mosaic floor suggest prosperity as does the presence of fine local pottery with graffiti similar to that found in the palace quarter. We might tentatively suggest that the houses were occupied by wealthy families, perhaps minor officials associated with the Phrygian court or independent merchants. This inferred wealth has been substantiated by recent excavations in Operation 1714 which recovered an

14 Operation 17 was excavated in 1995 and 1996 by Julide Aker, graduate student at Harvard University. PHRYGIAN GORDION 211 unusual deposit of artifacts that dates to the end of the Middle Phrygian/ YHSS 5 period. In 1995 and 1996 we cleaned out a large pit that had been cut into the earlier YHSS 5 architectural level with mosaic floors. This pit contained layers of pottery and animal bone as well as other artifacts. The pots were sometimes complete; the animal bone was sometimes articulated; and numerous usable or recyclable metal objects were present including a set of four copper alloy headstall elements, lead sheeting of unknown use, and gold foil. Military activities are documented by numerous iron and bronze arrowheads (pyramidal, socketed leaf-shaped and socketed trilobates) and a clay figurine depicting a helmeted rider. Among the restorable ceramic vessels were a Gordion cup, signed by the potter Sondros (Sams and Voigt in press: Photo 8). The Gordion cup as well as other Greek imports have been dated by Keith DeVries to the mid-sixth century BC (Voigt et al 1997). This date, and a change in architectural style in strata immediately overlying the pit, suggest that the deposit may represent the contents of one or more households which were on the wrong side when the Achamenids gained control of Gordion. Excavation in Gordion’s Lower Town from 1993 to 1995 provided more new evidence for the form of the seventh and early sixth century Phrygian settlement. During the Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 period, if not before, the area to the south of the two central mounds was fortified. Machteld Mellink’s excavations in and around the Küçük Höyük revealed a tall fortress, with towered walls extending out to the east and west and curving back toward (but not joining) the central East and West Mounds. The fortress was destroyed in the third quarter of the sixth century, presumably by the Persians (Young 1953:26-29, Fig. 19-21; 1957:324, Pl 89:Fig. 14; 1958:140-141)15. New excavations in two sectors within the Lower Town (Areas A and B, Fig. 2) show that deep fills raises the height of the living area during Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 times. To the east, in Area A, we found an ashlar building with rubble foundations set into clay (Figs. 14-18)16. Bordering the ashlar building to the south

15 The modern Küçük Höyük consists of the ruins of a tall mudbrick fortress, with a high triangular mound of clay built up against it to the southeast. The clay mound, originally thought to be a tumulus (Young 1958:141), is now generally considered to be a siege mound. 16 Operation 27 was excavated from 1993 to 1995 by Andrew Cohen, graduate student at Bryn Mawr College. 212 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 14. Areas A and B in the Lower Town from the north; the mound dominating this part of the site contains a Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 fortress and an adjacent siege mound. were hardpacked earth surfaces extending over a massive ashlar wall, again resting on a rubble foundation. The lower wall was heavily robbed and is at a slightly different angle than the building, but a well-preserved seg- ment against the west balk shows that it is a terrace wall rather than part of a second building (Fig. 18). In the low area to the south of the terrace wall was an open area with more very hard-packed earth surfaces. In Lower Town Area B, to the west, were Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 domestic buildings with a form of construction that differs from both public and ordinary domestic buildings on the East and West Mounds. Again resting on a clay fill were a series of building levels (Figs. 19-22)17. Mud brick and packed-mud walls rested on low cobble foundations; floors were of

17 Excavators in Area A between 1993 and 1995 were: Sevil Baltali, graduate student at the University of Chicago; Brendan Burke, graduate student at UCLA; Kim Codella, graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley; Andrew Goldman, graduate student at the University of North Carolina; Dr. Carol Kramer of the University of Arizona; Lynn Rainville, graduate student at the University of Michigan; Sabina Shahrokhizadeh, graduate student at the University of Arizona; R. Angus Smith, graduate student at Bryn Mawr College; and Debbie Whitney, graduate student at the University of North Carolina. PHRYGIAN GORDION 213

Fig. 15. Plan of the monumental ashlar building in Area A. The terrace to the southwest has been heavily robbed. 214 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 16. Monumental ashlar building in Lower Town Area A dating to the YHSS 5/ Middle Phrygian period. The surface preserved to the right is contemporary with the use of the building. The divergence between the rubble foundations of the building and that of the terrace to the left is clear in the area of the scale. clay and walls were mud-plastered. One room was especially well preserved, with smoothly plastered walls and floor, and a hearth with re-used rooftiles set into the wall as backing (Fig. 21). Sherds of an imported Attic vessel found in mud wall decay associated with this building indicate that the house was in ruins by c 500-480 BC. An earlier date for the abandonment for these structures seems preferable, although it cannot be proven archaeologically as yet. The nearby Küçük Höyük fortress, its ruins dominated by a massive siege mound, fell at some point during the third quarter of the sixth century, presumably to the Persian army (Glendinning 1996:111, n 51 with refs). It seems reasonable to propose that the Middle Phrygian houses in Area B were abandoned during the course of military activities, when anyone within the Lower Town would have been vulnera- ble to stray arrows if not deliberate attack18.

18 A similar date (540 BC) for the abandonment and burning of houses in the eastern part of the Lower Town that were excavated by Machteld Mellink in 1958 was suggested by G. Roger Edwards (1959:264). PHRYGIAN GORDION 215

Fig. 17. Monumental ashlar building and terrace in Lower Town Area A dating to the YHSS 5/Middle Phrygian period. The difference in level between terrace and terrace wall (right) and the adjacent open area (left) is greater than might be apparent from the photo, since a series of surfaces built up against the outer face of the terrace wall.

Fig. 18. Terrace in Lower Town Area A dating to the YHSS 5/Middle Phrygian period. Note the difference in height between the outer face of the terrace wall to the left (mostly preserved as a negative face when the ashlar blocks of the wall were robbed) and the inner face and rubble terrace foundations to the right. 216 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 19. Mudbrick domestic structures in Lower Town Area B, YHSS5/ Middle Phrygian period. The outlines of later pits (and pithouses) cut into these structures are indicated by dotted lines.

The final topographic zone of the Phrygian city is the Outer Town (Fig. 2). Surface survey by William Sumner, Keith Dickey and Andrew Goldman documented a large settled area to the northwest of Yassihöyük which has been examined through a series of small test excavations. Ceramics suggest that expansion of the Outer Town resulted in a settlement extending over more than one square kilometer. Only one excavated structure dates to the Early/Middle Phrygian occupation. Near the modern railroad line, about a kilometer from Yassihöyük, we placed a four-meter square sounding which (in a rare example of archaeological luck) exposed a subterranean room, in plan approximately square with rounded corners, that had been cut into virgin soil (Operation 22/1, Fig. 23; Sams and Voigt 1995: Fig. 10-12)19.

19 Operation 22 was excavated by Dr. Clare Hill with the assistance of Sevil Baltili; Baltili was a recent graduate of Bilkent College in 1993 and is now a graduate student at the University of Chicago. PHRYGIAN GORDION 217

Fig. 20. YHSS 5/Middle Phrygian houses built at grade cut by YHSS 4/ Late Phrygian pithouses at lower right and upper left. View looking toward west of Lower Town Area B. The thickened area in the long wall to the left represents a brick buttress that would have helped to support the roof.

Fig. 21. Mudbrick walls on cobble foundations within Lower Town Area B. To the right of the hearth in the foreground is a doorway into a second room with a less well-preserved floor. 218 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 22. Long wall linking two YHSS 5/Middle Phrygian domestic structures within Lower Town Area B, Operation 25 (Fig. 18). A large pottery storage jar was set into the floor of the southern building, in the foreground.

Restorable grayware vessels are typologically intermediate between YHSS 6 and 5 ceramics according to Sams (Voigt et al 1977:Fig. 22), and associated sherds of Early Phrygian painted ware also suggest an early date. This room does not have a hearth and was probably not a dwelling. A small cylindrical passage leads out from the room into an unexcavated area to the east, the passage floor at a higher level than that of the main room. Three meters to the east (in Operation 22/12) lay a “normal” mud wall with stone foundation, PHRYGIAN GORDION 219

Fig. 23. Subterranean chamber in the Outer Town, Operation 22.2. In the foreground in a cylindrical area leading into an unexcavated area. and traces of a parallel wall were found on the (ancient) surface adjacent to the chamber itself (Sams and Voigt 1995:Fig. 10). Without more excavation we cannot be certain, but it seems highly likely that the subterranean chamber was a storage room attached to a mud brick building. It would, in this case, be similar in form and function to the subterranean chamber attached to Middle Phrygian Building I:2. To the east of Yassihöyük, across the ancient course of the Sakarya river, lies another area of houses documented by surface sherds along the so-called “Northeast Ridge.” Excavation beneath burial mounds in this area confirmed the presence of domestic buildings with hearths, bins and grinding stones (Fig. 2: Tumuli E, H and I; see Kohler 1980: Fig. 19 and Young 1953:30, Fig. 22-23). The excavated buildings, to be published by Dr. Gunlog Anderson, include buildings “at grade” that can be assigned to the Middle Phrygian period based on ceramics (e.g. Tumulus E, Young 1953: Fig. 22) or on stratigraphic position (e.g. Tumulus H beneath a seventh century tomb, Kohler 1995:48). 220 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

To summarize, during the seventh and first half of the sixth century BC or the Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 period, Gordion was much larger in size and presumably population than in Early Phrygian/YHSS 6 times. Elite residences were located in the center of the city, the status of their occupants symbolized by elevated buildings which dominated the settlement and the surrounding plain. Public buildings and the houses of the rulers lay to the east within heavy fortification walls and wealthy merchants or officials lived on a second high mound to the west. The use of space in the Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 Lower Town shows the same pattern in the use of space as that on the twin central mounds. To the east lie public buildings, perhaps connected to the military force garrisoned in the nearby fortress; to the west are houses, well-built, but not as substantial as those on the Western Mound. We would tentatively interpret the open area within Lower Town Area A as an extension of the street running between the two central mounds, a clear space extending in front of the Lower Town fortress that could have been used for the assembly of troops. Additional residential areas sprawled to the northwest, and across the Sakarya river to the east. Absent from this picture is evidence for the basic productive activities that must have supported the city. For example, Robert Henrickson and James Blackman’s ongoing NAA study of clay sources utilized during the Middle Phrygian period indicates that some of the YHSS 5 Gray Common Ware pottery was made using Sakarya clays. Definitive evidence of local production comes from a single kiln with pottery that is typologically Mid- dle Phrygian, excavated by Machteld Mellink in a field to the south of the Küçük Höyük (Johnston 1970). We are left to conclude that “messy” or “smelly” activities such as metal working and pottery manufacture were carried out in the areas where our archaeological sample is poor (i.e., everywhere except the palace quarter), or in surrounding communities.

2. The Late Phrygian Period, YHSS 4 At some point during the second half of the sixth century BC a process of demolition began, and many of the large ashlar buildings on the eastern mound went out of use or were remodelled (Figs. 7, 24-25; Voigt 1994: 275-276, Pl. 25.7.3-4; see also Edwards 1959:265-267). In contrast to earlier times, industrial activities including iron smelting are amply documented, conducted across large areas of the Eastern Mound (see below). PHRYGIAN GORDION 221

Fig. 24. YHSS 4/Late Phrygian surfaces in Operation 1 on the Eastern Mound. The ashlar blocks at top right represent the southwest corner of YHSS 5/ Middle Phrygian Building I:2. To the left (north), the ashlars of Building I:2 have been removed, and re-used blocks used to construct a YHSS 4 cellar are visible, resting in part on Building I:2’s rubble foundation.

Nevertheless at least two buildings with massive stone walls were built on the Eastern Mound during the Late Phrygian/YHSS 4 period: the Painted House, constructed in the late sixth or early fifth century BC inside the main gate; and the approximately contemporary Mosaic Build- ing, constructed on the southwestern corner of the Eastern Mound20. There is, therefore, some continuity in the areas used for political and ritual activities between Early/Middle Phrygian times and the period of Achae- menid rule.

20 The date of the Mosaic Building was initially set at “the end of the fifth or the beginning of the fourth century” BC by Rodney Young (1953:11), but Keith DeVries (1990:392) and Matthew Glendinning (personal communication 1998) consider it of undetermined or undeterminable date based on the available evidence. The Painted House (Mellink 1980; Young 1956:255-256, Pl. 85, 86: Fig. 20-21) has been dated using the style of its wall paintings. Based on comparisons with Greek painting, Mellink (1980) considers the Painted House to date to 525 BC (1980:93), but DeVries would place the date somewhat later, between 520 and 490 BC (personal communication 1998). 222 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 25. YHSS 5/Middle Phrygian wall in Operation 1 re-used in YHSS 4/Late Phrygian times. The large pits visible in the foreground are characteristic of YHSS 4 and 3 deposits in this part of the settlement.

Continuity in the construction techniques and plans adopted for public architecture, on the other hand, is absent or ambiguous. The Painted House is a semi-subterranean chamber with polychrome images on white plaster, a unique architectural form at Gordion (Mellink 1980). The Mosaic Build- ing received its name from the pebble mosaics that ornamented its floors (Young 1953:9-14, Fig. 6-7; 1965:6; Sams and Voigt 1997:Plan 7, Photo 5; Voigt et al. 1997: Fig. 9). This type of floor dates back to the eighth century BC at Gordion, so that the Mosaic Building floors can be seen as late PHRYGIAN GORDION 223 examples of a local craft, one that may even have originated at Gordion (Young 1965). It is also possible that the architect(s) of the Mosaic Build- ing employed a distinctive Middle Phrygian construction technique — deep rubble foundations — under some of its stone walls. The main walls of the Mosaic Building lie above two rooms of Middle Phrygian Building A (DeVries 1990: n. 51, Young 1965), and thus lie in part above Building A’s rubble foundations. A small room or porch at the western end of the Mosaic Building has similar rubble foundations and these are not part of Building A as planned by Rodney Young; however, Matthew Glendin- ning, who has studied this building as part of his research on Gordion roof tiles, believes that the porch is not a totally new construction, but is again part of a Middle Phrygian building re-used in the Late Phrygian construction project (personal communication 1998). Additional excavation is needed to resolve this problem. What is absolutely clear is that the Mosaic Building is entirely different in plan from the megarons so typical of public architecture during Early and Middle Phrygian times. Large structures constructed of cut stone were also built on the Western Mound during the Late Phrygian/YHSS 4 phase, sampled by trenches in the Northwest Quadrant. Best (though none too well) preserved was a paved room or courtyard in Operation 36 (Fig. 26)21. The walls of this structure are represented by a series of neatly cut robber trenches that still contain a few scattered ashlar blocks. In an adjacent room was a set of stones forming small niches with signs of burning, perhaps the YHSS 4 equivalent of a multi-burner range. Still unexplained are the purpose of this building, and its relationship to a large and long-lived industrial area immediately to the southwest (see below). For the most part during Late Phrygian/YHSS 4 times houses spread across both high mounds, the Lower Town, and the Outer Town. Many of these buildings are semi-subterranean, and although informally known as “cellars,” most of these buildings have hearths and were clearly lived in. Form varies considerably, as does orientation. On the two central mounds these buildings tended to be relatively small and were often poorly built. Apparently typical of cellars excavated on the Eastern Mound is a building

21 The Late Phrygian buildings in Operation 36 were excavated from 1994 to 1996 by Heidi Steinmetz-Lovette, graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Lisa Cooper of the University of Toronto; and Elif Denel, graduate student at Bryn Mawr Col- lege. 224 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 26. YHSS 4/Late Phrygian structure in Operation 36, Northwest Quadrant (see Figs 2 and 12 for location). Only a few ashlar blocks remain in the trenches that mark the robbed out walls of this structure. The interior of the building was paved, and a small round hearth lay in the center of the room. set into the rubble foundations of Middle Phrygian Building I:2 (Fig. 24). There is no pattern or consistency in the stone walls and the floors in each of its two rooms are uneven, but a hearth and a pithos neck reused as a pot-base set on the floor indicate domestic activities. Given the shoddy construction techniques exhibited by this structure it was surprising to find high quality Attic imports (dated to the early fifth century) associated with it (Sams and Voigt 1991: Fig. 16). This apparent contradiction might be resolved if this structure was a workshop rather than a proper dwelling, a hypothesis that is supported by the ash-filled pits and crucible fragments distributed on the surfaces surrounding the building. More clearly domestic is a fourth century structure on the Western Mound that was far more carefully built and set approximately 1.20 meters below grade (Fig. 27; Sams and Voigt 1997: Photo 4). This building, excavated in Operation 17, had battered stone walls made of a single layer of stones that were carefully coated with mud plaster; the collapse inside the building PHRYGIAN GORDION 225

Fig. 27. YHSS 4/Late Phrygian pithouse in Operation 17. The outer walls of the structure are of stone, while the inner partition wall is of mudbrick. A small hearth lies in the southwest corner of the building. suggests a mud coated or packed mud rather than a brick superstructure. Mudbricks were used to construct a wall that divided the interior into two rooms, and in the northern room was a carefully built and maintained hearth. This small house follows the north-south alignment of Middle Phrygian/YHSS 5 buildings in this area, but an earlier building that dates 226 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 28. House built at grade in Operation 17. This structure was in use at the very beginning of YHSS 4, and it may have been constructed in YHSS 5/ Middle Phrygian times. to Late Phrygian or transitional Middle/Late Phrygian times does not. The latter structure had stone foundations that seem to lie just slightly below the contemporary exterior surface (Fig. 28; Sams and Voigt 1997: Photo 3). Large flat stones were used in the lowest course of the wall, sometimes set on edge, while higher courses (preserved only in the southwestern PHRYGIAN GORDION 227

Fig. 29. YHSS 4/Late Phrygian house in Operation 34, Northwest Quadrant. As is often the case, most of the plan of this building is preserved only by a robber trench. Contemporary surfaces inside and outside of the building are at approximately the same level. wall) were built of smaller, irregularly shaped stones. A carefully plastered floor revealed a large posthole in the center of the northeast and southwest walls, supports for a central roof beam; a line of smaller postholes along the southeastern wall seems more likely to have been related to interior fittings than to the building’s superstructure. In the Northwest quadrant of the Western Mound both semi-subterranean and structures with floors at or near the level of exterior surfaces 228 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 30. YHSS 4/Late Phrygian construction in Operation 36, Northwest Quadrant. A square chamber (most easily seen as a corner, at the left center of the photo) was set or cut into a mudbrick platform. The cluster of round pits that removed most of the floor of this structure also date to the Late Phrygian period. In the background is a sloping, fire-blackened surface that represents an unknown type of industrial activity. were found. Most numerous were rooms and courtyards with low stone foundations and mud brick or packed mud superstructures that are oriented northwest/southeast (Figs. Sams and Voigt in press:Photos 5-6). The evidence for houses built “at grade” was particularly clear in Operation 34, where one domestic structure succeeded the next throughout the Late Phrygian period (Fig. 29)22. Only two semi-subterranean buildings were found in this area, at least one of which is highly unlikely to have been used as a house. In Operation 36 we recovered the remains of a small room that was set into a platform made of reused mud bricks (Fig. 30). It had an earth floor that was not highly compacted, and a thin layer of lime- plaster on walls (i.e. platform edges) that had buckled over time. There

22 Operation 34 was excavated by Cindy Nimchuk, graduate student at the University of Toronto; Praveena Gullapalli, graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania; and Rana Ozbal, BA graduate. PHRYGIAN GORDION 229

Fig. 31. YHSS 4/Late Phrygian houses in Lower Town Area B. The open areas between houses were kept relatively clean and free of debris throughout the period. 230 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 32. YHSS 4/Late Phrygian pithouse in Lower Town Area B. The building had a large central hearth as well as a smaller hearth built up against a low wall in the northern quadrant of the building. was no evidence of any kind of cooking facility, and the entire structure would be more suitable for storage (of cereals?) than habitation. The second building, in Operation 2923, had stone walls set at odd angles, and an earth rather than a plaster floor (Sams and Voigt in press: Photo 5).

23 Operation 29 was excavated from 1994 to 1996 by Jack Cheng, graduate student at Harvard University; Kim Codella, graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley; Steven Batiuk, graduate student at the University of Toronto; and Elem Özdo- gan, undergraduate student at the University of Istanbul. PHRYGIAN GORDION 231

Fig. 33. YHSS 4/Late Phrygian pithouse in Lower Town Area B Operation 23, looking northwest. At a higher level are the remains of earlier, YHSS 5/ Middle Phrygian mudbrick structures. The central hearth of the building had decayed between the 1994 and 1995 excavation seasons.

Fig. 34. Southern end of a well-preserved YHSS 4/Late Phrygian pithouse in Lower Town Area B Operation 23. Post-slots in the southwestern wall of the building are visible to the right, adjacent to the paved area of the floor. 232 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 35. Central hearth in the YHSS 4/Late Phrygian pithouse, Operation 23. The firing chamber had straight sides, but the back of the structure proper consisted of an irregular pile of mudbricks.

From Lower Town Areas A and B comes a much larger sample of Late Phrygian structures, providing some idea of settlement pattern. The buildings were oriented northeast/southwest, irregularly placed with clean open surfaces between them (Fig. 31). All consisted of a single room. Best preserved was a large house in Area B, cut about 0.8 m below the contemporary surface (Figs 32-35). It had walls made of carefully set rows of cobbles which seems to have supported a superstructure made of organic materials and mud, based on the silt collapse inside the building; a line of large postholes extending diagonally across the building would have taken much of the weight of the roof off relatively light-weight walls. The floor of this building was of a dense gray clay, and the same material was used to plaster the interior face of the walls. Interior fittings document an architectural differentiation in the use of space. In the center of the room was a hearth with plastered arms extending in a crescent to the front, and a brick backing that was flat on the interior of the firebox but rounded to the exterior. Adjacent to the hearth was a ring of stones or bin that contained PHRYGIAN GORDION 233

Fig. 36. YHSS4/Late Phrygian pithouse in Lower Town Area B Operation 42. To the left (east) these buildings were cut by Roman graves.

2 lydions, tentatively dated to the fourth century BC. Against the southeastern wall was a low platform made of gray clay that was outlined in white plaster, and to the northwest a line of plaster and brick set off an area with a poorly preserved hearth. Along the southwestern wall was a stone paved area, and the wall itself had two narrow slots which probably housed wooden supports. To the north, in Operation 42, lay a much smaller building with similar stone walls and an informal hearth (Figs. 31, 36). An adjacent structure was badly preserved, its walls cut by robber pits and Roman graves. The fourth Late Phrygian/YHSS 4 building in Area B was deeper, and had relatively narrow walls less carefully built than those of other Late Phrygian structures in the Lower Town (Figs. 31, 37). There was no hearth on the mud floor, so that this building was either used for storage or was a true cellar with a wooden(?) superstructure used for habitation. In the Outer Town a small sample of excavated Late Phrygian structures all appear to have been built at grade, with cobble foundations and mud 234 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

Fig. 37. YHSS 4/Late Phrygian pithouse in Lower Town Area B Operation 26, looking northeast. The cylindrical pit in the southeast corner of the building was cut by the pithouse. walls (Fig. 38)24. This evidence is supplemented by observations made along a trench cut for an irrigation pipe in 1996, from the Sakarya just to the west of Yassihöyük to a point near Operation 22 in the Outer Town (Fig. 2). In the sides of the trench were cobble foundations as well as stone paved areas; moreover, these stone features were closely spaced docu- menting a densely settled area rather than houses interspersed with gardens as might be expected along the outer edges of a city. The trench was closed almost immediately after it was dug and the pipe was laid, so there was no possibility of dating these remains, but Late Phrygian pottery was common across the entire Outer Town area and the glimpse of the architecture that we had conformed to patterns observed in our soundings. Thus based on surface finds and what little we know about the archaeological

24 Operation 33 was excavated by Dr. Clare Hill in 1994 and Operation 43 was excavated in 1995 by R. Angus Smith. Work in this part of the site was consistently hampered by modern cultivation. PHRYGIAN GORDION 235

Fig. 38. Cobble foundations of a YHSS 4/Late Phrygian house in the Outer Town, Operation 32. remains below the surface, a surprising conclusion can be drawn: when the Persians conquered Gordion it did not decline in size and prosperity but instead remained stable and perhaps even grew to its maximum size during Late Phrygian times.

Conclusions We have an excellent sample of public architecture from the Eastern Mound at Gordion for the period from c 750 BC to the late fourth century BC. The small number of relatively elaborate structures that date to the period of Achaemenid rule were built within the area of the Early and Middle Phry- gian elite quarter, close to the fortification walls and gateway which was probably maintained through much if not all of the Late Phrygian period25.

25 At present, the date at which the Gordion fortification system was abandoned has not been determined on Yassihöyük. The stratigraphy in Lower Town B, however, suggests that the mud superstructure of fortification walls in this area did not really begin to deteriorate until after the Late Hellenistic/Galatian (YHSS 3A) occupation, or the second century BC. This inference is based on the fact that only a relatively thin layer of soil 236 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr.

The continuity exemplified by the location of “public” structures in the Middle Phrygian and Late Phrygian periods is not, however, typical of the settlement. Precisely dated contexts from the 1988-89 sounding clearly show that at least some of the massive stone structures of the Middle Phry- gian period had been demolished by 500 BC, and that areas formerly devoted to elite architecture were now used for industrial activities. This process of demolition and change in function may have begun much earlier, when Gordion lost political power to the Lydians in the early sixth century, but it certainly accelerated under the Achaemenids. Elsewhere on the site, houses were built above (and out of) monumental Middle Phry- gian structures, as well as in areas that had long been covered with houses. There are some clear changes in domestic architecture between the Middle and Late Phrygian periods. While in some parts of the settlement (the Northwest Quadrant and the Outer Town) conventional mud brick buildings with stone foundations predominate throughout the Late Phry- gian period, in other areas they are replaced by pithouses. This discontinuity, most visible in the Lower Town, may be more apparent than real. Build- ings such as the large pithouse in the Lower Town are not very different from the “cellar” attached to Building I:2, sharing techniques of wall construction (rubble with post-slots) as well as distinctive dense gray clay floors. More generally, the construction of pithouses is typical of Gordion beginning in the Early Iron Age, the period when Phrygians migrate into Anatolia and establish a settlement at Gordion (Voigt 1994; Voigt and Henrickson in press). What we really need to demonstrate either continuity or discontinuity is a larger sample of residential architecture, especially from the Early Phrygian period. Research on the effect of Achaemenid rule on in other aspects of technology and economy at Gordion has just begun, but significant changes in ceramics, horse gear, and military equipment are apparent even at this preliminary stage of analysis. What is also clear-based on the quantity and quality of ceramic and glass imports26, abundant evidence for local indus- try, and settlement size — is that Gordion remained a thriving community after its incorporation into the Persian Empire. separates the YHSS 4/Late Phrygian buildings from YHSS 3A/Galatian burials and bone deposits, but large quantities of loose, silty wall decay slope down from south to north above the Galatian surface. 26 For recent publications on imports from Greece see DeVries 1997b; Jones 1995. PHRYGIAN GORDION 237

Acknowledgements

Excavation and survey at Gordion since 1988 has been funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH, a US federal agency), the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC), the National Geographic Society, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Kress Foundation, the IBM Foundation, and by gifts from generous private donors. Grants to individuals have been made by the 1984 Foun- dation, the American Philosophical Society, the American Research Institute in Turkey, Bucknell University, and the College of William and Mary. All modern archaeological research at Gordion (1950-1996) has been sponsored and supported by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; co-sponsors are the College of William and Mary (since 1991) and the Royal Ontario Museum (since 1993). The instrumental neutron activation analyses (INAA) have been carried out by M.J. Blackman at the INAA facility of the Conservation Analytical Labo- ratory (CAL) of the Smithsonian Institution, using the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s 20 MW research reactor. All maps and plans in this article were prepared by Sondra Jarvis and Denise Hoffman; pho- tographs were taken by Laura Foos, Maria Daniels, William Pratt and Mary Voigt.

The Gordion Project thanks the General Directorate for Monuments and Museums for its support and assistance, especially Prof.-Dr. Engin Özgen. We are also grateful to the General Directorate of the Museum of Anato- lian Civilizations, especially Mr. Ilhan Temizsoy. Representatives of the Ministry of Culture were Mrs. Nihal Kalaycioglu and Mr. Tevfik Göktürk (1988), Mr. Hamdi Ikiz (1989), Mr. Vahap Kaya (1990), Mrs. Nurhan Ülgen (1992), Mrs Ferhan Büyükyörük (1993), Mrs. Zehra Taskiran (1994), Mr. Mehmet Akalin and Mrs. Ayse Toker (1995), Mr. Nusret Çetin and Mr. Özcan Simsek (1996), and Mr. Nusret Çetin and Mrs. Gülay Aslan (1997), all of whom carried out their duties with care and patience.

The authors would also like to thank G. Kenneth Sams, Robert H. Dyson, Jr., Machteld Mellink, G. Roger Edwards, and Ellen Kohler who have gener- ously shared their time, their records, and their views of ancient Gordion with the immigrants from the east. Without the members of the excavation staff from 1988-1995 this article could not exist. We sincerely thank 238 M.M. VOIGT & T. CUYLER YOUNG, Jr. excavators Jülide Aker, Sevil Baltili, Brendan Burke, Jack Cheng, Kim Codella, Andrew Cohen, Elif Denel, Laurette DeVeaux, Keith Dickey, Robert Dyson, Geoffrey Emberling, Laura Foos, Ann Foster, Matthew Glendinning, Andrew Goldman, Irene Good, Praveena Gullapalli, Clare Goff Hill, Janet Jones, Mine Kiraz, Carol Kramer, Timothy Matney, Rudolph Mayr, Naomi Miller, Cindy Nimchuk, Rana Ozbal, Eylem Özdo- gan, Lynn Rainville, Mitchell Rothman, Sabina Sharokhizadeh, R. Angus Smith, Sharon Steadman, Heidi Steinmetz-Lovette, Bernard Thomas, and Deborah Whitney who provided the data and in many cases, basic inter- pretations used to construct our narrative. Registrars and registrar’s assis- tants were Amy Leviton, Lupe Gonzalez, Mevhibe Hocaoglu, Betty Pratt, Jennifer Quick, Christina Shea, Janet Turchi, Leslie Uphoff and Pam Young. Ceramic analysis of local pottery has been carried out by Robert Henrickson, and of Western Anatolian and Greek pottery by Keith DeVries. Assisting Robert Henrickson in ceramic analysis were Marika Cassis, Tamara Castillo, Steven Harvey, Megan McCormick, Barbara Murray, Miriam Stark and Leslie Uphoff. Tugba Akan, Hannah Canel, Jack Cheng, Paula Dardaris, Sean Gaukroger, Katharine Glendinning, Heather Harvey, Clare Hill, Denise Hoffman, Sondra Jarvis, Kenneth Keltai, Sue Ann McCarty, Elspeth McIntosh, Katharine O’Connor, Jennifer Quick. William Remsen, and Allan Spulecki served as surveyors, planners and draftspeople. Laura Foos, Maria Daniels and William Pratt served as photographers. We profusely thank the conservation team led by Jessica Johnson and Steven Koob, and including Cricket Harbeck, Hüsnü Kayisbugdak, Yunhui Mao, Ellen Salzman, Eva Shipp, Brenda Smith, and Julie Unruh, for taking bits, pieces and amorphous lumps and making them into intelligible pieces of the past. Faunal analysis during 1988 and 1989 was carried out by Susan Arter and Melinda Zeder; Jeremiah Dandoy has continued this work since 1994, assisted by Ajita Patel and Pam Young. Ben Marsh, Tony Wilkinson and Arlene Miller Rosen studied present and past landforms, and Naomi Miller studied present and past plant communities. Other major activities being carried out as part of the excavation project are an ethno- archaeological study undertaken by Ayse Gursan-Salzman, and a regional surface survey conducted in 1996 by Lisa Kealofer, Peter Grave, and Gre- gory McMahon. PHRYGIAN GORDION 239

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