The Great Mother at Gordion: The Hellenization of an Anatolian Cult

Abstract

Gordion, the principal city of Phrygia, was an important center for the worship of the major Phrygian divinity, the Great Mother of Anatolia, the Greek and Roman Cybele. Considerable evidence for the goddess's prominence there have come to light through excavations conducted at the site, first by Gustav and Alfred Körte and more recently by the continuing expedition sponsored by the University Museum in Philadelphia. These include sculptural representations of the goddess and numerous votive objects dedicated to her. The material pertinent to the goddess and her cult in Gordion during the most prominent period of Phrygian culture, the eighth and seventh centuries BC, is similar to that from other contemporary Phrygian centers. Even after the loss of Phrygian political independence in the seventh century, the cult of the goddess in Anatolia continued to flourish, and the older traditions of iconography and votive types were maintained. During the Hellenistic period, however, we see a different version of the goddess at Gordion. The earlier Phrygian forms of cult image and votive were gone, and in their stead are figurines and votive objects which are clearly of Greek inspiration. The Mother goddess was still at home in Gordion—several stone and terracotta representations of her from this period attest to that—but her visual image had become thoroughly Hellenized.