Archaeology and Mythology: Animating a Composite Midas

Abstract The “wealth of Midas” was proverbial in antiquity, and yet our earliest extant narrative of Midas and his golden touch appears in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. A historical Midas, king of Phrygia, is possibly identified with the so-called Midas Mound in Turkey, excavated in 1957. In 1963, Se-Ma-For Productions created King Midas (Król Midas), a ten-minute silent puppet animation that draws on both ancient sources and later receptions of the story. It integrates archaic Greek, Minoan, and Near Eastern imagery, placing Midas in a composite environment, reflecting the potentially hybrid features of the myth. Following the models of reception studies that trace the ways modern media reinterpret antiquity, I examine how the animated form re-frames Ovid’s story. I argue that the richly detailed hybrid images used to convey the narrative bring together different traditions surrounding the story. The animation capitalises on archaeology and ancient material culture, particularly showcasing Midas’s cultural contacts abroad.