Yazılıkaya Midas Anıtı

The Midas Monument rises in the village of Yazılıkaya in Han district, south of Eskişehir, as the most magnificent example of the Phrygian rock facades. The monument is carved into a projecting rock mass on the northeastern slope of the Midas City plateau, regarded as the most important belief centre of the Phrygians. Its name comes from the word Midai read in the Phrygian inscription in the upper left corner. Local people called it Yazılıkaya, the inscribed rock, because of the writing on it, and both names are used today. Facing east, the monument is 17 metres high and 16.5 metres wide. Its height above the ground varies between 1.20 and 1.80 metres. The facade is worked like the front of a temple. At the top is an acroterion made of two facing segments of a circle. The pediment and the facade wall are covered from end to end with dense decoration of geometric motifs. English Wikipedia writes that these abstract patterns imitate the terracotta facings of buildings. At the centre of the facade is a large niche symbolising a door. According to the Culture Portal, this niche was where the statue of the Mother Goddess Matar was placed during ceremonies. There are three Phrygian inscriptions on the monument, and although they can be read their meanings have not been fully deciphered. The first inscription is carved in a curve on the smoothed rock at the upper left and is 11 metres long. Its letters are almost 45 centimetres tall, and the words Ates and Midai appear in it. According to English Wikipedia, the inscription says that Ates son of Arkias dedicated the monument to Midas. The second inscription is on the right side frame and is 4.75 metres long. The third is inside the niche to the left of the monument, starting on the left wall and continuing on the back and right walls. Around the niche there are a few more rough inscriptions that are hard to make out with the naked eye, and the name Matar appears in them. The date of the monument varies according to the sources. The Culture Portal dates it to the first half of the 6th century BC. Turkish Wikipedia gives the 600s BC, while English Wikipedia suggests the early to mid 7th century BC. What is certain is that the monument is one of the earliest and largest of the series of great rock monuments of western Phrygia. European travellers came to know the monument at the beginning of the 19th century. W. M. Leake and his companions examined it in 1800, and G. Koehler made a rough drawing of it. In 1834 Charles Texier drew an engraving of the monument; the sources count it as the first and only engraving faithful to the original. Excavations were carried out in front of the monument in 1936 and 1937. Beneath fill that reached 3 metres in places, a courtyard of 17 by 19 metres sloping to the north came to light. South of the courtyard, a rock cut floor belonging to a colonnaded gallery and four column bases were found. Researchers agree that there was a large open air cult area here, made up of the facade, the courtyard and the gallery. The plateau behind the monument is Midas City itself. According to the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, the settlement is 650 metres long and 320 metres wide, rising 60 to 70 metres above the valley floor. The main entrance to the city is on the east, and the ramped road cut into the rock is known as the Royal Road. On top of the plateau you can see stepped altars carved from the rock, two tunnels reached by rock cut stairs and the large rock cisterns in the southwest. About 200 metres southwest of the monument stands the Unfinished Monument, 7 metres high. The disproportion of its architectural elements shows that this facade was left before it was completed as planned. The Akpara, Pişmiş, Gökgöz and Kocabaş castles around it controlled the roads leading to the settlement from above. The best time to visit is the morning, because the east facing facade catches the first sun and the decoration deepens in the side light. First look at the facade as a whole from the open ground opposite, then come closer and trace the inscription at the upper left. Then climb the path to the plateau and explore the altars, tunnels and cisterns; wear sturdy shoes because the ground is rocky. The Culture Portal writes that Yazılıkaya is about 80 kilometres from Eskişehir. The Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism notes that the village is reached from Seyitgazi by an asphalt road of about 30 kilometres. Since the site lies far from the city centre in a rural valley, plan your trip allowing for the travel time. Check the visiting conditions of the archaeological site with the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism before you go.