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2004-2008
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The legend of King
Midas and the Golden Touch was
born in Turkey.
Poet and mythologist Robert Graves says
that Midas was the son of the great Goddess
Ida, and king of a Thracian
tribe called the Brigians, who
may have been descendants of the Mushki,
a Pontic people who had moved to Thrace,
then moved to western and central
Anatolia.and became known as the Phrygians.
The Phrygian kingdom flourished under
Midas from about 725 BC to 675 BC.
According to the myth, Midas once
did a favor for old Silenus,
the teacher of Dionysus. In
exchange, Midas was granted a wish.
"Make everything I touch turn
to gold!" quoth Midas, and
so it did: food, drink, his horse,
his servants, even his daughter,
thereby breaking Midas's heart.
Midas pleaded with Dionysus to release
him from the curse of
the Golden Touch. Dionysus
told Midas to wash at the source
of the River Pactolus (Gediz
Nehri, near Kütahya)
in Anatolia, and the curse would
be gone.
Midas did, and was cured, and
to this day you can see flakes of
gold in the Gediz Nehri.
The legend was probably born to explain Midas's
great wealth and the flecks
of gold people saw in the Pactolus/Gediz.
The Phrygians
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