Sardis
, also Sardes
(Lydian: Sfard
, Greek: S??de??
, Persian: Sparda
), modern Sart
in the Manisa province of Turkey, was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia, one of the important cities of the Persian Empire, the seat of a proconsul under the Roman Empire, and the metropolis of the province Lydia in later Roman and Byzantine times. As one of the Seven churches of Asia, it was addressed by the author of the Book of Revelation in terms which seem to imply that its population was notoriously soft and fainthearted. Its importance was due, first to its military strength, secondly to its situation on an important highway leading from the interior to the Aegean coast, and thirdly to its commanding the wide and fertile plain of the Hermus.
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SARDIS TICKETS
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Geography
Sardis was situated in the middle of
Hermus valley, at the foot of
Mount Tmolus, a steep and lofty spur which formed the citadel. It was about south of the Hermus. Today, the site is located by the present day village of
Sart
, near
Salihli in the Manisa province of Turkey, close to the
Ankara -
Izmir highway (approximately from
Izmir). The part of remains including the bath-gymnasium complex, synagogue and Byzantine shops is open to visitors year-round.
History
The earliest reference to Sardis is in the
The Persians
of
Aeschylus (
472 BC); in the
Iliad the name Hyde seems to be given to the city of the
Maeonian (i.e. Lydian) chiefs, and in later times Hyde was said to be the older name of Sardis, or the name of its citadel. It is, however, more probable that Sardis was not the original capital of the Maeonians, but that it became so amid the changes which produced the powerful Lydian empire of the
8th century BC.
The city was captured by the
Cimmerians in the
7th century, by the
Persians and by the
Athenians in the
6th, and by
Antiochus III the Great at the end of the
3rd century. In the Persian era Sardis was conquered by
Cyrus the Great and formed the end station for the Persian
Royal Road which began in
Persepolis, capital of
Persia. During the
Ionian Revolt, the
Athenians burnt down the city. Sardis remained under Persian domination until it surrendered to
Alexander the Great in 334 B.C..
Once at least, under the emperor
Tiberius, in
17 AD, it was destroyed by an earthquake; but it was always rebuilt. It was one of the great cities of western
Asia Minor until the later Byzantine period.
The early Lydian kingdom was far advanced in the industrial arts and Sardis was the chief seat of its manufactures. The most important of these trades was the manufacture and dyeing of delicate woolen stuffs and carpets. The stream
Pactolus which flowed through the market-place "carried golden sands" in early antiquity, in reality gold dust out of Mt. Tmolus; later, trade and the organization of commerce continued to be sources of great wealth. After
Constantinople became the capital of the East, a new road system grew up connecting the provinces with the capital. Sardis then lay rather apart from the great lines of communication and lost some of its importance. It still, however, retained its titular supremacy and continued to be the seat of the
metropolitan bishop of the province of Lydia, formed in
295 AD. It is enumerated as third, after
Ephesus and
Smyrna, in the list of cities of the
Thracesion thema given by
Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the
10th century; but over the next four centuries it is in the shadow of the provinces of Magnesia and Sipylum and Philadelphia, which retained their importance in the region.
After 1071AD The Hermus valley began to suffer from the inroads of the
Seljuk Turks but the successes of the general
Philokales in 1118AD relieved the district and the ability of the
Comneni dynasty together with the gradual decay of the
Seljuk Sultanate of Rum retained it under Byzantine dominion. When
Constantinople was taken by the
Venetians and
Franks in 1204AD Sardis came under the rule of the Byzantine
Empire of Nicea. However once the Byzantines retook Constantinople in 1261AD Sardis and
Asia Minor was neglected and the region eventually fell under the control of Ghazi (
Ghazw) clans, the
Cayster valleys and a fort on the citadel of Sardis was handed over to them by treaty in 1306AD. The city continued its decline until its capture (and probable destruction) by the
Mongol warlord
Timur in 1402AD.
Archaeological expeditions
By the nineteenth century, Sardis was in ruins, showing construction chiefly of the Roman period. The first large scale archaeological expedition in Sardis was directed by a
Princeton University team between years
1910 -
1914, unearthing the Temple of Artemis, and more than a thousand Lydian tombs. The excavation campaign was halted by
World War I, followed by the
Turkish War of Independence. Some surviving artifacts from the Butler excavation were added to the collection of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York.
The excavation is currently under the directorship of Nick Cahill, professor at the
University of Wisconsin. 4The laws governing archaeological expeditions in Turkey ensure that all archaeological artifacts remain in Turkey. Some of the important finds from the site of Sardis are housed in the
Archaeological Museum of Manisa, including Late Roman mosaics and sculpture, a helmet from the mid-
6th century BC, and pottery from various periods.
Sardis synagogue
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Since
1958, both
Harvard and
Cornell Universities have sponsored annual archeological expeditions to Sardis. These excavations unearthed perhaps the most impressive synagogue in the western diaspora yet discovered from antiquity, yielding over eighty Greek and seven Hebrew inscriptions as well as numerous mosaic floors. (For evidence in the east, see
Dura Europos in
Syria.) The discovery of the Sardis synagogue has reversed previous assumptions about Judaism in the later Roman empire. Along with the discovery of the
godfearers/theosebeis inscription from the
Aphrodisias, it provides indisputable evidence for the continued vitality of Jewish communities in Asia Minor, their integration into general Roman imperial civic life, and their size and importance at a time when many scholars previously assumed that Christianity had eclipsed Judaism.
The synagogue was a section of a large bath-gymnasium complex, that was in use for about 450 – 500 years. In the beginning, middle of the
second century AD, the rooms the synagogue is situated in were used as changing rooms or resting rooms. The complex was destroyed in
616 AD by the Sassanian-Persians.
See also
- Lydia
- Manisa
- Byzantine
- Harvard University
- Cornell University
- List of synagogues in Turkey