Sardis Gold Smithing

 


One of the most important representatives of the Classical Period (5th-4th centuries BCE) in the museum collection is the findings from Sardis. Sardis was the capital of the Lydian Kingdom that controlled prime resources such as gold and silver. The city fell under Persian domination when the Lydian King Croesus was defeated by the Persians lead by king Cyrus the Great in 540 BCE. The city became an important satrapy and the final destination of the Persian Royal Road, running from the Persian capital Susa. Conquered by Alexander the Great in 334 BCE, Sardis went on to become on of the Seleucid Dynasty's most important cities in Anatolia. The city was destroyed by a major earthquake in the year 17. 

The gold resources of Sardis are frequently mentioned in ancient texts. Some sources describe the Lydian king as a gold-rich ruler, while Sardis and the region in general was associated with gold. Moreover, the river Pactolus was said to be the city's source of gold. According to legend, the river had so much gold because the Phrygian king Midas-who turned everything he touched to gold-had bathed in it. In ancient times, gold was obtained in two ways. 

First, by processing gold-bearing quartz veins at the source and second, by sifting for alluvial gold granules and nuggets, swept by the river that had eroded the quartz veins. Initially, researchers believed that among the nuggets' comprising elements was a silver-containing alloy called electrum, found in the beds of the streams lying in the north of Mount Tmolus (modern day Bozdağ), and in the Pactolus River that eroded the quartz veins and passed through Sardis. 

Yet recent analyses conducted on gold samples collected from the streams and other sources around Sardis has shown that the ore is fundamentally pure gold and contains almost no silver, suggesting that the electrum must have been brought from an outside source and processed in Sardis.


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