Special expanded issue of Expedition includes essays by and about the adjunct assistant professor of art history and his dig in Gordion, Turkey
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art History Richard Liebhart wrote “Tumulus MM: Fit for a King” for Expedition: The Magazine of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, with support from University of Pennsylvania graduate student Lucas Stephens.
The article details Liebhart’s research into the 53 meters tall tumulus (burial mound) that is believed to date to ca. 740 BCE and may have been occupied by the body of a Phyrgian king believed to be the father of the most famous of such kings, Midas.
Liebhart, who has been working at the Gordion dig in Turkey for more than 20 years, suggests that the mound may have in fact been commissioned by King Midas as “the first prominent and public statement of his power and ambition.” The wooden interior chamber, not the first of its kind, is nonetheless the oldest example of the form still existing relatively intact. Liebhart uncovered names carved into the wood (early examples of tagging?) and is developing hypotheses about whom they identify. The magazine includes references to Liebhart’s findings throughout and, of course, many photographs of him hard at work at the site.
Liebhart will be presenting at Elon on April 15 at 1:45 p.m. on the recent amazing hypotheses concerning the existence of a possible tomb chamber of Queen Nefertiti “hidden” next to King Tutankhamun’s tomb chamber in Egypt. Location is to be announced but email kringelberg@elon.edu if you are interested in attending. Students interested in this material will be particularly interested in Liebhart’s fall 2016 class, “The Art & Archaeology of Death.”