Sardis

Sardis was the capital of Lydia, and the Lydians are generally credited with striking the first true coins - electrum from the Pactolus river that runs through the site - which makes this the birthplace of money in a fairly literal sense. Croesus, whose wealth became proverbial, ruled here before the Persians took the city in 546 BCE. Two separate areas are visitable. The first, beside the modern road, holds the Roman gymnasium and bath complex, whose two-storey marble court facade has been re-erected and is the image everyone knows, along with a colonnaded shopping street and, opening off it, the synagogue - one of the largest ancient synagogues known, with its mosaic floors and marble revetment substantially intact, dating from a period when Sardis had a long-established Jewish community. A kilometre away in a valley below Mount Tmolus stands the Temple of Artemis, enormous, half-buried and never finished.

History

Sardis was lived in for at least 3,500 years, first settled before 1500 BC, and Herodotus tells of a line of kings descended from Heracles followed by the Mermnad dynasty, from Gyges to Croesus, whose rule ended in 546 BC. In the 7th century BC it became the capital of Lydia, a city of 108 hectares behind walls twenty metres thick, with its acropolis terraced in white stone, the three great burial mounds of Bin Tepe visible from afar and workshops by the Pactolus stream where gold was refined from the river; after Lydia it was a Persian provincial capital and later a centre of Hellenistic and Byzantine culture, and in 2025 it was inscribed as a World Heritage Site (Wikipedia, Sardis).

Highlights

• The gymnasium facade - the re-erected marble court.
• The synagogue - mosaic floors and marble panelling.
• The colonnaded street - Roman shops along the frontage.
• The Temple of Artemis - the huge unfinished temple in the valley.

When to go

April to June and September to October. Mornings; the sites are open and shadeless, and the Gediz valley is very hot in summer.

Before you go

Two separate enclosures a kilometre apart - a car helps. Interpretation is limited and the Artemis temple is partly buried. There is little shade and few facilities.

Nearby

Salihli and its thermal springs are close; the Kula volcanic geopark is east along the valley.

Key facts