Sardis was the capital of the Lydians, a powerful Iron Age civilization (8th-6th centuries BCE) known for its wealth and early coinage production. The city had a unique urban structure with fortified walls, terraces, and distinct zones, including settlements, sanctuaries, and cemeteries. The cemetery of Bin Tepe features some of the largest tumulus tombs in the world. The Lydians developed a distinct language and religious system and were widely mentioned in Greek, Roman, and European texts. After their fall, Sardis remained significant under Persian, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine rule.

Brief synthesis Sardis was one of the pre-eminent Iron Age cities of the ancient world. Located in western Türkiye, it was the capital and only city of the Lydians. The Lydians rose to prominence in the 8th-6th centuries BCE, conquering most of western Anatolia and establishing the first empire in the region during the Iron Age. They invented coinage, an innovation that was quickly adopted by their neighbours, with long and widespread impacts on global economies. Located at a crossroads between the Greek world and contemporary Near Eastern cultures, the Lydians established cultural, economic, military, and diplomatic ties to both the Greeks to their west, and the great empires to the east and south, the Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Phrygians, and others. The downfall of the Lydians despite their wealth, and the perils of the hubris of King Croesus has been reflected in literature since ancient times. The Lydians developed their capital city with a distinctive system of monumental terraces, creating a scheme of urban planning unlike those of the Greeks, Egyptians, or other peoples of the Near East. They protected the city with a regionally distinctive twenty-meter-thick fortification wall. The necropolis of Bin Tepe is located seven to seventeen kilometres north of the citadel of Sardis, which includes more than 119 tumuli. The three large tumuli at Bin Tepe are amongst the largest tumulus tombs in the world, and amongst the first to include features such as the crepis…