Gordion Furniture and Wooden Artifacts

A spectacular collection of furniture and wooden artifacts was excavated by the University of Pennsylvania at the site of Gordion (Latin: Gordium), the capital of the ancient kingdom of Phrygia in the early first millennium BC. The best preserved of these works came from three royal burials, surviving nearly intact due to the relatively stable conditions that had prevailed inside the tomb chambers. The Gordion wooden objects are now recognized as the most important collection of wooden finds recovered from the ancient Near East.

The group comprises over 100 fine wooden artifacts, including tables, a bed, a throne, serving stands, stools, footstools, plates, spoons, boxes, a parasol, and 12 carved wooden animals. Several pieces of furniture are highly ornate, profusely inlaid with geometric patterns that exhibit sophisticated types of symmetry, and featuring designs that symbolize the Phrygian Mother Goddess Matar (Kybele). The furniture from the largest tomb at Gordion, Tumulus MM, is associated with King Midas, the powerful Phrygian ruler of the eighth century BC.

The wood has been conserved over a period of 30 years using innovative methods developed by an international team of conservators; these methods are now considered standard for the treatment of dry archaeological wood. The good state of preservation of the Gordion wooden objects has allowed scientists to identify the woods used and investigate their deterioration. Chemical analyses of the residues from the associated bronze vessels have indicated how the bronzes were used with the furniture - and have even determined the menu of a royal Phrygian funerary feast. Several of the most elaborate pieces have been mounted for display in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, Turkey.

The central Anatolian site of Gordion was first excavated by Gustav and Alfred Körte in 1900 and then by Professor Rodney S. Young of the University of Pennsylvania in a major campaign between 1950 and 1973. Among the many exceptional Phrygian artifacts recovered were more than one hundred wooden objects dating to the eighth century BC—a rare find, since organic materials seldom survive in buried conditions. The wood discovered by the Körte brothers consisted mainly of furniture fragments from a tumulus burial (K-III), which were significant but too fragmentary to be well understood. Young’s excavations, however, produced a spectacular collection of wooden furniture and other types of objects, many of which were in relatively good condition.

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