Lydia minted some of the world’s first coins from electrum
In western Anatolia’s Iron Age, Lydians built a rich kingdom around Sardis, famous for gold and for electrum coins dated to about the seventh century BCE. Croesus and Alyattes pushed borders to the Halys before Persia swallowed the realm in 546 BC.
Lydia sat inland from Ionia, in what are now the Turkish provinces of Uşak, Manisa and inner İzmir. In the Late Bronze Age the area belonged to Arzawa, a patchwork of sub-kingdoms that swung between alliance and rebellion against the Hittites. Sardis, the capital, pioneered terraced planning copied by later multi-level cities, and the royal mounds at Bin Tepe rank among the biggest on the planet.
The Lydians spoke an Anatolian language related to Hittite and Luwian, written in an alphabet akin to Greek, at first in either direction and later only right to left. Around a hundred texts survive, nearly all near Sardis and mostly on tombs, and only about 30 are complete and longer than a few words. The language died out in the 1st century BC.
Herodotus traced an early Heraclid dynasty of 22 generations, ending with Candaules around 687 BC. The first king attested by contemporary evidence is Gyges, who seized power amid invasions by the Cimmerians, nomads from the Pontic steppe. He sent envoys to Assyria and attacked Greek cities such as Miletus and Smyrna, but in 644 BC the Cimmerians sacked Sardis and killed him. His son Ardys saw the city sacked again in 637 BC. Then Alyattes, taking the throne in 635 BC, turned the kingdom into an empire, pushing east into Phrygia until he clashed with the Medes. Their five-year war stopped in 585 BC when a solar eclipse during a battle was read by both armies as a sign to make peace.
His son Croesus beat a half-brother to the throne, brought Caria and mainland Ionia under direct rule and signed friendship pacts with the island Greeks. When Cyrus of Persia toppled Croesus's brother-in-law Astyages in 550 BC, Croesus attacked, lost at Pteria and Thymbra, and saw his kingdom absorbed four years later.
Source: Lydia
