Guide
Kümbet Valley is one of the valleys of Highland Phrygia that fall within Eskişehir province, in the Seyitgazi district. It lies on the ancient road that led to the Yazılıkaya platform, the religious centre of the Phrygians, so it was a place people passed through on their way to somewhere sacred. Two monuments stand on the mound on whose slope the village of Kümbet was later built, and they are separated by about fifteen centuries: a Phrygian rock tomb and a Seljuk tomb tower.
The tomb known as Solon's Tomb, or the Lion Temple, was cut in the Phrygian period and was still in use in Roman times, when its monumental facade and reliefs were added. The triangular pediment with its acroteria carries a shield at the centre and an eagle on either side. Below it, within a tabula ansata, two lions face one another across a krater. The name comes from an inscription on the door lintel of the main chamber, which mentions a Solon; the lions give it the other name. The Himmet Baba tomb stands on the rock outcrop at Kümbet village and is dated by plan, technique and material to the thirteenth century, a Seljuk work. It is octagonal outside and circular inside, built of cut stone under a pyramidal brick cap, and Byzantine marble pieces were reused at its door. The gravestones of the burial ground around it carry inscriptions showing it remained in use into the Ottoman period. Kümbet village is two kilometres off the Eskişehir-Afyonkarahisar road.
