Ismail Mardin reports back after spending time with Professor Nicholas Cahill and his team who are using both traditional and cutting-edge scientific methods to explore and analyse the site of the Lydian capital in Turkey and the many diverse finds unearthed there.
Situated about 100km east of present-day Izmir, 70km inland from the Aegean Sea, Sardis was the capital of the Lydian Empire, the seat of the fabled King Croesus, and the place where coinage was first invented and used. During the 7th and 6th centuries BC, Lydian strength was based largely on their control of the gold-mines of western Anatolia, their mastery of accurately and predictably controlling the composition of gold, and the related invention of coinage. These skills enabled them to become the most powerful empire in the region. But 1000 years later, the lower city of Sardis was all but abandoned, and the city turned from a metropolis into a fortified citadel.
Excavations at Sardis have been carried out by Harvard and Cornell Universities since 1958. Today they are directed by Professor Nicholas Cahill of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His archaeological team – with members from Asia, Europe and America – combines a resident faculty of specialists with a set of visiting and attached fellows, using the latest technology as well as traditional archaeological methods, to explore, analyse and conserve finds.
The site sits where a vast and fertile agricultural plain begins to give way to rapidly rising wooded hills leading up to the Anatolian highlands. The citadel is perched in a very strong defensive position on a cliff overlooking the plains. The site covers a wide area that includes an ancient necropolis of some 74sqkm, known as Bin Tepe (Turkish for ‘a thousand mounds’), where more than 100 burial tumuli are clearly visible.
Denne historien er fra November/December 2018 Volume 29 Number 6-utgaven av Minerva.
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Denne historien er fra November/December 2018 Volume 29 Number 6-utgaven av Minerva.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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ROMAN DISCOVERIES AT ANCIENT AUGUSTODUNUM
More than 230 graves have been uncovered at a necropolis in the French city of Autun, revealing a diverse mix in burial practices over a period of nearly 200 years, as well as luxury grave goods from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD that highlight the wealth of some of its ancient inhabitants.
SHAPING THE WORLD: SCULPTURE FROM PREHISTORY TO NOW
The sculptor Antony Gormley and the art historian and critic Martin Gayford have been talking about sculpture with each other for 20 years.
Amelia Edwards (1831-1892)
“I am essentially a worker, and a hard worker, and this I have been since my early girlhood.”
THE GREAT BEYOND
The ancient Greeks thought much about the dead – how their remains should be disposed of, how their spirits might be summoned, how malignant they could be if unavenged. Classicist David Stuttard brings us face to face with the Greek dead.
INTO THE VALLEY OF THE QUEENS
The Great Royal Wife of Ramesses II, Nefertari, was buried in one of the most spectacular tombs of Egypt’s Valley of the Queens. Well-educated and well-travelled, Nefertari played a crucial part in the political life of the pharaoh, and her importance was reflected through her magnificently decorated tomb. Lucia Marchini speaks to Jennifer Casler Price to find out more.
DEIR EL-BAHRI, 1894
Tensions were already high among the archaeologists, surveyors, and artists of the Archaeological Survey of Egypt in 1891 when an eventful dispute arose on Christmas Eve.
PUSHING BOUNDARIES
When the Etruscans expanded to the south and the vast plains of Campania, they found a land of cultural connections and confrontations, as luxurious grave goods found across the region reveal. An exhibition at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples sheds light on these ancient Italians at the frontier. Paolo Giulierini, director of the museum, is our guide.
CUZCO 'CENTRE AND HEAD OF ALL THE LAND'
Cuzco was the heart of the vast Inca empire, but all changed in the 16th century when the capital was conquered by Spanish invaders. Michael J Schreffler investigates the Inca city, and how it went from the centre of one empire to the periphery of another.
A STUDY IN PURPLE
A tiny speck of purple paint from the 2nd century AD may yield clues to how ancient artists created the extraordinary portrait panels that accompanied mummified bodies into the afterlife.
Rome In The 8th Century: A History In Art
John Osborne CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, £75 HARDBACK - ISBN 978-1108834582
