First excavated in the 1950s by a team of archaeologists from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the Early Phrygian Gate is the largest extant gate to survive from the Iron Age in the Middle East.  However, its dry laid construction (built without the use of mortar) leaves it vulnerable to the region’s high seismic activity.  Constructed around 900 BCE, the Early Phrygian Gate served only briefly as the main entryway to the citadel.  Successive periods of occupation within the citadel mound resulted in a new gate which utilized the earlier structure as a foundation for new construction.  The changing load patterns produced by the new superimposed structures caused visible damage—most notably masonry cracking and displacement.  Although cracking occurred historically from the additional loads of the later city walls, displacement continues to be an active condition.  From 2006-2010, the Architectural Conservation Laboratory and Engineer Dr. Ahmet Turer from METU have conducted a detailed program to document, monitor and assess the gate’s overall structural stability and determine the condition of its limestone walls.

Construction
At nearly ten meters in height, the massive ashlar masonry gate remains very complete.  Constructed by the Phrygians with careful planning and consistency, the gate exhibits a great uniformity of courses, complexly battered faces, masonry bonded corners, tooth-shaped headers and evidence of internal timber tie beams.  Several walls located along the exterior and central entryway maintain a multiple leaf system with an outer ashlar veneer encasing a rubble masonry core.  Many individual stones retain the original chiseled tooling of the block face, and evidence of an earthen plaster finish is still found on several elevations. 

Condition
Since its exposure to the environment approximately six decades ago, the Early Phrygian Gate has been subjected to several localized reconstructions and injection grouting on four walls.  Although the gate has largely maintained its original aesthetic, areas receiving interventions exhibit variations in chinking technique and, in some cases, stone type.  Additionally, the sixty-year exposure to the Central Anatolian climate has largely compromised the original earthen finish that once covered portions of the Early Phrygian Gate complex.