GORDIUM

ancient Anatolian city, the ruins of which, along the banks of the Sakarya (ancient Sangarius) River, northwestern Turkey, have yielded important information about ancient Phrygian culture. American excavations after 1950 revealed Early Bronze Age and Hittite settlements, but the city achieved its greatest prominence as the flourishing capital of Phrygia in the 9th and 8th centuries BC. According to legend, the ancient capital was founded by the peasant Gordius, who contrived the knot later cut by Alexander the Great. Gordium remained the political centre of Phrygia until the Cimmerians burned the city and shattered Phrygian power in Anatolia in the early 7th century BC. Though rebuilt under the Persians, Gordium never regained its former splendour.