Midas Monument

The Midas Monument is a facade cut flat into a rock face at the village of Yazılıkaya - written rock - and it is the largest and finest surviving work of the Phrygians. It stands about seventeen metres high and sixteen wide, carved to represent the front of a building: a gabled roof with acroteria, and the whole surface filled with a geometric lattice pattern in relief, with a niche at the base that once held an image of the goddess Matar, the Phrygian mother goddess. Inscriptions in the Phrygian alphabet run along the top and side, and one of them contains the word Midai - a dative form of the name Midas - which gave the monument its modern name, though whether it refers to the king of the legend is not settled. It was a cult facade rather than a tomb. Around it on the plateau are stepped altars, cisterns, a second unfinished facade and the remains of a Phrygian citadel, all free to walk.

What you actually see

• The great facade - seventeen metres of carved lattice pattern.
• The cult niche - the recess that held the goddess.
• The Phrygian inscriptions - the text naming Midas.
• The citadel plateau - altars, cisterns and an unfinished facade.

When to go

April to June and September to October. Late afternoon light rakes across the carved pattern and shows it best; the plateau is exposed year-round.

Honest expectations

There is no ticket office, guide or interpretation beyond a panel. The plateau above involves scrambling on rock. No facilities in the village beyond a tea house. A car is essential.

Nearby

The wider Phrygian Valley sites at Ayazini, Döğer and Kümbet are within an hour; Eskişehir is north.