Lydians
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Lydians
The Lydians (Greek language, Greek: Λυδοί; known as ''Sparda'' to the Achaemenids, Old Persian cuneiform Wikt:𐎿𐎱𐎼𐎭, 𐎿𐎱𐎼𐎭) were an Anatolians, Anatolian people living in Lydia, a region in western Anatolia, who spoke the distinctive Lydian language, an Indo-European languages, Indo-European language of the Anatolian languages, Anatolian group. Questions raised regarding their origins, reaching well into the 2nd millennium BC, continue to be debated by language historians and archeologists. A distinct Lydian culture lasted, in all probability, until at least shortly before the Common Era, having been attested the last time among extant records by Strabo in Kibyra in south-west Anatolia around his time (1st century BC). The Lydian capital was at ''Sfard'' or Sardis. Their recorded history of statehood, which covers three dynasties traceable to the Late Bronze Age, reached the height of its power and achievements during the 7th and 6th centuries BC, a ...
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Lydia
Lydia (; ) was an Iron Age Monarchy, kingdom situated in western Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey. Later, it became an important province of the Achaemenid Empire and then the Roman Empire. Its capital was Sardis. At some point before 800 BC, the Lydian people achieved some sort of political cohesion, and existed as an independent kingdom by the 600s BC. At its greatest extent, during the 7th century BC, it covered all of western Anatolia. In 546 BC, it became a Lydia (satrapy), satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire, known as ''Sparda'' in Old Persian. In 133 BC, it became part of the Roman Republic, Roman Asia (Roman province), province of Asia. Lydian coins, made of electrum, are among the oldest in existence, dated to around the 7th century BC. Geography Lydia is generally located east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish provinces of Uşak Province, Uşak, Manisa Province, Manisa and inland İzmir Province, İzmir.Rhodes, P.J. ''A History of the Classical Greek ...
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Lydia Circa 50 AD - English Legend
Lydia (; ) was an Iron Age kingdom situated in western Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey. Later, it became an important province of the Achaemenid Empire and then the Roman Empire. Its capital was Sardis. At some point before 800 BC, the Lydian people achieved some sort of political cohesion, and existed as an independent kingdom by the 600s BC. At its greatest extent, during the 7th century BC, it covered all of western Anatolia. In 546 BC, it became a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire, known as ''Sparda'' in Old Persian. In 133 BC, it became part of the Roman province of Asia. Lydian coins, made of electrum, are among the oldest in existence, dated to around the 7th century BC. Geography Lydia is generally located east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish provinces of Uşak, Manisa and inland İzmir.Rhodes, P.J. ''A History of the Classical Greek World 478–323 BC''. 2nd edition. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, p. 6. The boundaries of historical Lydia va ...
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Sardis
Sardis ( ) or Sardes ( ; Lydian language, Lydian: , romanized: ; ; ) was an ancient city best known as the capital of the Lydian Empire. After the fall of the Lydian Empire, it became the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persian Lydia (satrapy), satrapy of Lydia and later a major center of Hellenistic Greece, Hellenistic and Byzantine Greeks, Byzantine culture. Now an active archaeological site, it is located in modern day Turkey, in Manisa Province, near the town of ''Sart, Salihli, Sart''. History Sardis was occupied for at least 3500 years. In that time, it fluctuated between a wealthy city of international importance and a collection of modest hamlets. Early settlement Sardis was settled before 1500 BC. However, the size and nature of early settlement is not known since only small extramural portions of these layers have been excavated. Evidence of occupation consists largely of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age pottery which shows affinities with Mycenaean Greece and ...
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Croesus Portrait
Croesus ( ; ; Latin: ; reigned: ) was the king of Lydia, who reigned from 585 BC until his defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 547 or 546 BC. According to Herodotus, he reigned 14 years. Croesus was renowned for his wealth; Herodotus and Pausanias noted that his gifts were preserved at Delphi. The fall of Croesus had a profound effect on the Greeks, providing a fixed point in their calendar. "By the fifth century at least", J. A. S. Evans has remarked, "Croesus had become a figure of myth, who stood outside the conventional restraints of chronology." Name The name of Croesus was not attested in contemporary inscriptions in the Lydian language. In 2019, D. Sasseville and K. Euler published a research of Lydian coins apparently minted during his rule, where the name of the ruler was rendered as ''Qλdãns''. The name comes from the Latin transliteration of the Greek , which was thought by J.M. Kearns to be the ancient Hellenic adaptation of the reconstructed Lyd ...
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Lydian Language
Lydian is an extinct Indo-European language, Indo-European Anatolian languages, Anatolian language spoken in the region of Lydia, in western Anatolia (now in Turkey). The language is attested in graffiti and in coin legends from the late 8th century or the early 7th century to the 3rd century BCE, but well-preserved inscriptions of significant length are so far limited to the 5th century and the 4th century BCE, during the period of Achaemenid Empire, Persian domination. Thus, Lydian texts are effectively contemporaneous with those in Lycian language, Lycian. Strabo mentions that around his time (1st century BCE), the Lydian language was no longer spoken in Lydia proper but was still being spoken among the multicultural population of Kibyra (now Gölhisar) in southwestern Anatolia, by the descendants of the Lydians, Lydian colonists, who had founded the city. Text corpus and decipherment In 1916 the Sardis bilingual inscription, a bilingual inscription in Aramaic and Lydian all ...
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Battle Of The Eclipse
The eclipse of Thales was a solar eclipse in the early 6th century BC that was, according to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (writing about 150 years later), accurately predicted by the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus. If Herodotus' account is accurate, this eclipse is the earliest recorded as being known in advance of its occurrence. The only solar eclipse matching the presumed place, era, and conditions of visibility necessary to explain the historical event is the eclipse of 28 May 585 BC. How exactly Thales could have predicted a solar eclipse remains uncertain, and modern scholars are skeptical of the story's veracity. Some have argued for different dates, or for other interpretations of Herodotus's account. According to Herodotus, the change of day into night was interpreted as an omen, and interrupted a battle (sometimes called the "Battle of the Eclipse") in a long-standing war between the Medes and the Lydians in Anatolia (present-day Turkey). American writer I ...
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Lycians
Lycians () is the name of various peoples who lived, at different times, in Lycia, a geopolitical area in Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor). History The earliest known inhabitants of the area were the ''Solymoi'' (or ''Solymi''), also known as the Solymians. Later in prehistory, another people, known as the Milyae (or Milyans) migrated to the same area; they spoke an Anatolian language (Indo-European) known as Milyan language, Milyan and the area was known as Milyas. According to Herodotus, Milyas was subsequently settled by a people originating in Crete, whose endonym was ''trm̃mili'' – the Geographical name changes in Greece, hellenized form of this name was Termilae (Τερμίλαι). Under a leader named Sarpedon, the Termilae had been driven out of Crete (according to Herodotus) by Minos and settled in a large part of Milyas. Subsequently, the Milyae were concentrated increasingly in the adjoining mountains, whereas the Termilae remained a maritime people. The ...
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Cyrus The Great
Cyrus II of Persia ( ; 530 BC), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Hailing from Persis, he brought the Achaemenid dynasty to power by defeating the Median Empire and embracing all of the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanding vastly across most of West Asia and much of Central Asia to create what would soon become the List of largest empires#Timeline of largest empires at the time, largest empire in history at the time. The Achaemenid Empire's greatest territorial extent was achieved under Darius the Great, whose rule stretched from Southeast Europe in the west to the Indus Valley in the east. After absorbing the Median Empire, Cyrus conquered Lydia and eventually the Neo-Babylonian Empire, granting him control of Anatolia and the Fertile Crescent, respectively. He also led a major expedition into Central Asia, where his army brought "into subjection every nation wit ...
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Kibyra
Cibyra or Kibyra (Greek: ), also referred to as Cibyra Magna, was an Ancient Greek city near the modern town of Gölhisar, in Burdur Province. It lay outside the north-western limits of the ancient province of Lycia and was the chief city of an independent state known as Cibyratis. Since 2016 it has been included in the Tentative list of World Heritage Sites in Turkey. Location The site is identified by its inscriptions. The Cibyratic plain is about 300 m above sea level. Cibyratis comprised the highest part of the basin of the Xanthus (river), and all the upper and probably the middle part of the basin of the Indus river, for Strabo describes Cibyratis as reaching the Rhodian Peraea. Mount Cragus ( Babadağ) at 6,500 feet (1,969 m) bounded it on the west and separated it from Caria. Pliny's brief description states that the river Indus, which rises in the hills of the Cibyratae, has sixty perennial tributaries. History The city is mentioned by ancient literary sou ...
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Anatolians
The Anatolians were a group of Indo-European peoples who inhabited Anatolia as early as the 3rd millennium BC. Identified by their use of the now-extinct Anatolian languages, they were one of the oldest collective Indo-European ethno-linguistic groups and also one of the most archaic, as they were among the first peoples to separate from the Proto-Indo-Europeans, who gave origin to the individual Indo-European peoples. History Origins Together with the Proto-Tocharians, who migrated eastward, the Anatolian peoples constituted the first known waves of Indo-European emigrants out of the Eurasian Steppe. They likely reached Anatolia from the north, via the Balkans or the Caucasus, in the 3rd millennium BC, or less likely from the Caucasus without ever existing in the north. This movement has yet to be documented archaeologically, although they had wagons, they probably emigrated before Indo-Europeans had learned to use chariots for war. Comparison of Hittite agricultural te ...
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Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see things at great distance as if they were nearby was also called "Strabo". (; ''Strábōn''; 64 or 63 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek geographer who lived in Anatolia, Asia Minor during the transitional period of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. He is best known for his work ''Geographica'', which presented a descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known during his lifetime. Additionally, Strabo authored historical works, but only fragments and quotations of these survive in the writings of other authors. Early life Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amasya, Amaseia in Kingdom of Pontus, Pontus in around 64BC. His family had been involved in politics s ...
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Phrygia
In classical antiquity, Phrygia ( ; , ''Phrygía'') was a kingdom in the west-central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. Stories of the heroic age of Greek mythology tell of several legendary Phrygian kings: * Gordias, whose Gordian Knot would later be cut by Alexander the Great * Midas, who turned whatever he touched to gold * Mygdon, who warred with the Amazons According to Homer's ''Iliad'', the Phrygians participated in the Trojan War as close allies of the Trojans, fighting against the Achaeans. Phrygian power reached its peak in the late 8th century BC under another historical king, Midas, who dominated most of western and central Anatolia and rivaled Assyria and Urartu for power in eastern Anatolia. This later Midas was, however, also the last independent king of Phrygia before Cimmerians sacked the Phrygian capital, Gordium, around 695 BC. Phrygia then became subject to Lydia, and then successivel ...
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