Word: lydian
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Sardis was a center of civilization from the late Stone Age until 1402 A.D., when Monguls led by Tamerlane overran and obliterated the last city to stand there. Under King Crossus, whose name has become associated with great wealth, the Lydian Empire had produced more precious metals than any other land...
Careful digging revealed that the circular depressions were cupels, or metal-refining bowls. Unearthed with them were four furnaces, remnants of bellows, tiny bits of gold and gold alloys, and pottery fragments from the time (570-547 B.C.) when Croesus ruled the Lydian Empire in what is now western Turkey...
...feet to trace the wall. Inscribed on it were various letters. One monogram, repeated ten times, is deciphered by the excavators as "Gugu," the names under which King Gyges is mentioned in the Assyrian annals. Gyges had sent an embassy to Assyria, which ceated a sensation since the Lydian horsemen had come so far and spoke a language strange to the Assyrians...
Gyges, Professor Hanfmann explains, "probably started building his own burial mound during his lifetime, as other Lydian kings are known to have done. Gyges died at Sardis while fighting the Kimmerians, Crimean horsemen who invaded Asia Minor. After the invaders were driven out, Gyges' successor decided to magnify the memory of the late king by enlarging his burial mound to its present colossal dimensions...
...puzzling feature of the mound is the network of ancient tunnels encountered. The excavators believe the tunnels were dug several centuries later by Romans in search of the Lydian royal treasure buried with the king. In the southern half of the mound these ancient tunnels stopped without reaching their goal. But there may be others in the northern, as yet unexplored, part. Next summen the expedition hopes to reach the final resting place of King Gyges...