Phrygians with their trousers, tunics, and conical caps play music, dance, and clap, while Greek figures drink from fluted cups filled with wine decanted from pitchers filled from a wine skin, shown hefted on the shoulders of the figure at the right. The multicultural diversity of the region became pronounced after Alexander of Macedon left a contingent of Greeks to rule the territories of present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. After the waning of the Hellenistic kingdoms in the first century BC, Scythians and Parthians from Central Asian and Iran took control of the region. By the first century AD, trade between the Roman Empire, India, and China had reached unprecedented proportions, bringing wealth and international merchants to the area. A procession of people  clapping, blowing a long horn, dancing, and carrying grapes once adorned a Buddhist monument in a region that had Greco-Roman roots extending back to 326 BC, with the arrival of Alexander of Macedon and his successors. Bacchanalian scenes were carved on the lower portions of public monuments to reference the joyful abundance of life, which may well be enhanced with veneration of the monument and donations to the monastery with which it was associated.

Dionysus. The God from Phrygia. His name carries weight; for those who worship Dionysus know of his kindness and for those who mock him ten plagues befall them. The god of wine, music, fertility, madness and also reincarnation. Why is wine an important ritualistic drink? Why was it important in the ancient world? For not the reasons you might think the vineyard and its fruit represents much more. In the Ancient Balkans, people had the opportunity to witness reincarnation. It was through the vineyard that this was made possible. In the autumn and winter the vineyard was dead and appeared cut down yet in the spring it would almost magically come back alive and its fruits ready to be plucked when come summer. Dionysus was therefore more than just a deity of wine and earthly pleasures, he appeared in two forms; both young and old. Interestingly this god bares striking resemblance to the Biblical Jesus of Nazareth in both life and death.

Newly gutted trench in the outskirts of Southern Gordion. Clearly visible layers of the soil is like an elevator for history. Digging, going back in time, in Ankara, you have at the first layer The Ottomans, Seljuks, Byzantium, Roman, Galatian, Hellen, Persian, Lydian, Phrygian, Assyrians, Hittites. I am in the trench filming the open guts of the soil, fragments of life protruding every inch with pottery, bones, fossils, charcoal in this newly opened up section of the ancient capital of the Phrygians.

Frigler ve Kibele’nin sevgilisi Attis, konik, tepesi öne doğru kıvrılmış, kırmızı bir başlık giyerdi. Frig savaşçılarının miğferi de bu formdaydı. Bu başlık Yunanlar için barbarları ve dolayısıyla Truvalıları da simgelerdi. Traklar ve Daçlar da bu başlığı kullanırlardı. Bu başlık, daha sonra Roma’da, azat edilen kölelerin özgürlüklerini simgelemek için giydikleri bir aksesuar olacaktır. Ve aynı başlık Friglerden 2.500 yıl sonra “bonnet rouge” adıyla, Parisli devrimciler tarafından kullanılmaya başlanacaktır. Frigya Başlığı, Fransız Devrimi’nin ve Amerikan Bağımsızlık Savaşı’nın özgürlük sembollerinden birine dönüşecektir.