Early Phrygian drawings from Gordion and the elements of Phrygian artistic style

Abstract

The excavations of Young at Gordion (1950–73) made an immeasurable contribution to our understanding of the Iron Age in central Anatolia. Amidst the attention paid to his discoveries of rich burial tumuli and substantial buildings within the elite quarter of the Gordion citadel mound, a series of casual drawings incised on the exterior surface of one of these buildings, Megaron 2, has received less notice. Known informally as ‘doodles’, these drawings range from small cursory sketches to larger complex pictures. They were noted in the Gordion preliminary excavation reports for the 1956 and 1957 seasons and were the subject of a brief study in Archaeology in 1969, but their significance has never been fully assessed. Yet these drawings, while hardly great art, have the potential to offer much valuable information on Phrygian interests and activities and on the Phrygians' sources of artistic inspiration in the late eighth century BC. For this reason I am undertaking a full review of all the stones with incised Phrygian drawings for publication. My goal here is to discuss the technique and subject matter of the drawings, and offer some suggestions about the artistic impetuses which lay behind them.