Sardis (Sardes)

Aegean, Turkey 3 tours visit here

Sardis — Sart in today's Manisa province — lies inland in Turkey's Aegean region, below the Bozdağ range and beside the Pactolus stream, whose gold-bearing sands made the city rich. It was the capital of the Lydian kingdom under Croesus, and is credited as the birthplace of coined money. After the Lydians fell to Persia it served as a satrapal seat, and it remained important through Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine times; it is also one of the seven churches named in the Book of Revelation. The ruins fall into two areas a short distance apart. Beside the main road stands the Roman bath and gymnasium complex, whose ornate Marble Court has been re-erected, together with a colonnaded row of Byzantine shops and the synagogue, one of the largest known from antiquity and still floored with mosaics. Up a quiet valley rises the Temple of Artemis, an unfinished Ionic building of enormous scale, with the acropolis on the heights behind. Sardis is usually seen as a stop between İzmir and Pamukkale, and takes most visitors one to two hours. Shade is limited, so spring and autumn are more comfortable than midsummer; the Lydian royal burial mounds of Bin Tepe lie on the plain to the north.