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YAZILIKAYA MIDAS CITY:Yazılıkaya
is 80 km far from Eskişehir. One can reach the village from Çifteler County
on southeast of Eskişehir. The road departure from here reaches to
Yazılıkaya through Mecidiye, Bardakçı, Karağaç and Kayı. Besides, one can go
to Yazılıkaya through the way Seyitgazi and Afyonkarahisar or Emirdağ.
The height of Yazılıkaya village is 1315 meters. There is Eskişehir city on
the North, Kütahya on the West, Afyonkarahisar on the South, and Seyitgazi
on the Northeast. The exact location is on “Phrygian Plateau”. Height can be
as high as Turkmen Mountain in some places. Because of that altitude, air is
rather clean and it was named as “Phrygia Salutaris” which means “Healthy
Phrygia”. |
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Yazılıkaya Village is
located on the foot of Acropol. The great Midas Monument is perceived at the
very first look. Midas Monument is extremely important especially for
Phrygian history. However, the monument has not been mentioned much until
19th century. It was discovered by an English officer W.M. Leake passing by
the region for the first time. He stated that he had seen monuments which
carved on rock and had writings on surface while he was traveling by
Eskişehir to Seyitgazi and then to Hüsrev Paşa. Then he returned back to the
monument and examined the writings on the surface and when he saw the name
“Midas” on inscriptions, he named the monument as “Midas’s Grave”. W. Leake
published that trip notes in 1824. Charles Texier, who came after him,
copied the surfaces of three rocks and inscriptions and published actual
information about the subject. Researches done on archeological monuments in
Anatolia had risen in second half of 19th century. Archeologist Radet, who
come that region in 1886 and 1893, had discovered Yazılıkaya Village settled
down just bottom of Midas monument.
As it can be seen nowadays, there are Midas monument on an erupted rock,
city wall surrounding Acropol, underground stairs, graves, altars and
unfinished monuments and fountains in Northeast side of ancient city Acropol,
just over Yazılıkaya Village.
Midas monument is carved on tufa, covering an area of nearly 400 m2 with a
rectangular shape and the surface is decorated with geometric meander motifs
have Phrygian art features.
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