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Title: A Fluid Political Landscape
Subtitle: Power, Hegemony and Ethnicity in Iron Age Phrygia
Author(s): SANTINI, Marco
Journal: Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Volume: 61    Date: 2024   
Pages: 75-101
DOI: 10.2143/ANES.61.0.3294024

Abstract :
This paper revisits the political organisation of Phrygia during the ninth and eighth centuries. Drawing on previous criticism of views of Phrygia as a centralised kingdom, the paper suggests that the territory commonly associated with the term 'Phrygia' oscillated between decentralisation and centralisation. While in the ninth and for part of the eighth century it was politically fragmented and lacked a common ethno-political identity, by the late eighth century it tended to centralisation under a hegemonic centre (Gordion) and its leader (Midas). Midas’s leadership fostered a new sentiment of Phrygian ethno-political identity, which encompassed a vast geographical area and passed down to tradition.

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