In the western-central arid heartland of ancient Anatolia, the river Sangarios snaked through the ancient Iron Age Kingdom of Phrygia , once a rival to Assyria in the south-east and Urartu in the...
Cybele was the sole Phrygian Mother Goddess, acting as an interlocutor between the known and unknown, the living and the dead. As such, one of her chthonic cults was established at the Ploutonion or...
A being named Midas has been immortalized in Yazılıkaya, Turkey. Many people think the famous inscription dedicated to this person referred to the king remembered for his ‘golden touch’, but that’s...
‘But what a small part of our dregs Is Greek! Long ago the wide Orontes of Syria poured into the Tiber And brought With its lingo and morals its flutes And harps...’ - Juvenal Rome did not sit...
Commodities versus conservation – yet again the debate is playing out. This time the site of interest is the ruins of an ancient castle in Turkey; where dynamite may shake a unique mother goddess...
In his History , Livy reported that during a critical part of the battle against the Samnites in 296 BCE, the general Appius Claudius was seen in the front lines raising his hands as he uttered a...
Blasting and quarrying of rock at a site near the ancient Kurul Castle in Turkey have endangered the structure and a precious statue of the ancient goddess Cybele. The castle, which dates back about...
Though she was one of the most renowned goddesses in her day, the motherly, wise Cybele has long been over-shadowed in the mythology of ancient Greece by the later pre-Olympian goddesses, Rhea, Gaia...
A goddess of ecstatic and chthonic reproductive mysteries, Cybele was the primary mother goddess of ancient Anatolia, and Phrygia's only known goddess thus far. She was a "Mistress of Animals", "...
In a mountain valley in Serbia around 300 AD, Romans built a palace complex to honor the Emperor Gaius Valerius Galerius Maximianus, who was born in the area. In this palace, called Felix Romuliana,...