This hypothetical sequence of events is problematic for a number of reasons. The hypothesis relies on a literal reading of highly mythologized accounts of the Kimmerian destruction and the suicide of Midas that were written many centuries after the events they describe. Moreover, the character of the damage to the Early Phrygian Citadel is inconsistent with destruction caused by enemy action: no evidence for weapons was found, nor were there any human skeletal remains in the destruction debris. Recent investigations in the Middle Phrygian settlement levels indicate that rebuilding in the Citadel area was begun within the space of one to two years after the Destruction Level fire; the Middle Phrygian Citadel buildings were constructed following a plan extremely similar to that of the Early Phrygian Citadel and were set into the thick layer of clay brought in to cover the debris from the fire.27 This circumstance strongly suggests that no major disruption or political dislocation separated the Early and Middle Phrygian Levels. Taken together, these circumstances indicate that the fire was not the result of hostile outside agency against Gordion, although the actual cause of the destruction still remains unclear.
Young’s proposed early 7th century BCE date for the Early Phrygian destruction is also questionable, since the date was determined by the tenuous link with the Kimmerian invasion and the later accounts of the suicide of Midas. A more accurate date is suggested by the results derived from C14 testing of organic matter (grain and wood) from the Destruction Level; these indicate a chronological range of 830–805 BCE for the destruction.28 Since Megaron 2 was one of the buildings destroyed, this provides a reasonably certain terminus ante quem for the end of the building’s use. The complex history of the building and its surroundings suggests that Megaron 2 may have been in use for 50–80 years, yielding a date in the early to mid 9th century BCE for the building’s construction.29
As noted above, stones with incised drawings were found on the exterior surface of the east, south, and west walls of Megaron 2. A large number of incised stones were found lying on the ground in the space between Megarons 1 and 2; these probably had fallen from the east wall when it collapsed as a result of the fire. Here the relationship of one block to another could not be ascertained. Near the southeast corner, where the east wall was supported by the rubble fill of the Terrace Building construction, the wall remained standing to a height of approximately 1.8 m. The position of the blocks in the standing wall was recorded, demonstrating that this portion of the wall consisted of four horizontal courses in the lower wall, then a horizontal wooden timber, and an unknown number of stone courses above the timber (Figs. 9, 10).30 On this section of the wall, incised drawings can be found on virtually every block. The fill of the Terrace Building complex also preserved the south/back wall of Megaron 2. Here the entire width of the back wall was found standing to a height of ca. 1.5 m. When initially excavated, the wall was partially obscured by the two storage sheds, Houses X and Y, but the removal of the sheds revealed that there were no incised drawings on the stones below the large horizontal timber set into the back wall of the megaron.31 Above the horizontal timber, about three or four courses of stone in each of the vertical piers survived, and all of them were covered with incised drawings. Here too the position of the stone courses and the placement of the incised drawings on them were recorded in situ (Figs. 13, 14). This drawing furnishes our best evidence for the appearance of the incised drawings on the standing walls of the building.
The west wall of Megaron 2, in contrast, is the most poorly preserved section of the building; here the wall had been extensively plundered and the surfaces of the surviving blocks were extensively cracked and flaked.32 Several of the blocks found in the courses at ground level had incised drawings on them. Although these were mentioned in the notebooks at the time of excavation, and a few were photographed (Fig. 15 offers an example), none was saved or inventoried. In addition, two blocks with incised drawings were recovered from House Y, one of the storage sheds behind Megaron 2.33
The circumstances under which the stones of Megaron 2 were incised will receive fuller discussion in Section 4. We can note here, however, that the evidence strongly suggests that the drawings were already present on the exterior surface of the megaron during the earliest phase of its use, before the construction of Houses X and Y. The back wall of the building would have been blocked off by these two storage sheds, and the back and west side walls would have been blocked by the fill of the Terrace Buildings. At the same time we should note that not every part of the megaron’s exterior surface had incised marks; the east wall was extensively covered with incised drawings, while the west wall had fewer, and the south wall had none on the lower part of its surface, although many on the upper part.
Over ninety incised stones from Megaron 2 were lifted from the east and south walls of the building and from House Y, the storage shed, and brought to the Gordion depot for inventory.34 These are the stones whose drawings form the major portion of the catalogue here. The current state of preservation of the incised stones, however, is quite uneven. The collapse of the east wall caused the stones to fall outward, and many incised stones from this wall were found jumbled together in a heap at the base of the wall. Several of these must have fallen with their faces down, since this section includes a number of blocks that are nearly intact with the incised face well preserved. Others, however, suffered markedly in the fire; the blocks were fractured into small pieces and their surfaces were cracked. Often the surface of a block is pitted with holes where salts in the stone exploded as a result of the fire’s heat. The two vertical piers in the southeast corner wall, 50–57 in the catalogue, were in good condition at the time of their excavation, but apart from two examples, 50 and 53, none was saved. The fate of the stones in the upper part of the south wall is also quite uneven. As the drawing of the stone piers illustrates (Fig. 14), many of these blocks had intact surfaces with visible drawings at the time of their discovery and these were recorded. The impact of the fire, however, caused several of the stones in Figure 14 to deteriorate to the point where they disintegrated when they were lifted from the wall; thus several blocks recorded in this drawing either do not survive or are in markedly poorer condition, with much of the incised face now gone. This includes stones 93–98; these were not inventoried at the time of their discovery, but they can be identified from excavation photographs as part of the south wall of the megaron and are included here. None of the incised blocks from the west wall were inventoried and so their fate is unknown. In addition, a number of small fragments of soft white poros stone with incised drawings were brought to the excavation depot but not inventoried. Most of these have no identifying labels; they may come from Megaron 2 but since this is not certain they have not been included in the present study. Thus it should be noted that the material presented here lays no claim to completeness.
In addition to the stones removed to the Gordion depot, the excavators’ daybooks comment on the presence of incised stones that were not removed from Megaron 2, but were left in place in the building. In order to investigate this, during the summer of 2004 I cleared the backfilled earth from the exterior faces of the east and west walls, the two side walls of the megaron, to determine if any incised stones were still visible in situ. The rear, or south wall of the building was not opened, since it was deeply buried by backfilled rubble supporting the Terrace Building; moreover, the excavators’ notebooks and the published excavation reports stated clearly that all incised blocks were removed before the area was backfilled.35 One well preserved example, 48, a block with a drawing of two lions, was found in 2004 in the lowest course of the east wall; this block, which likely was overlooked in the original excavation of Megaron 2, is included in the catalogue. No other incised drawings were found