Archaeology Magazine - March 1961 - 8

8. Fragmentsof East Greek plate with floral Orientalizing
design (secondLydianlevel,PC). SeventhcenturyB.C.

Sardis

continued

ture on the south side and a building with a curious
double wall on the north side. Finds of Greek Geometric
pottery prove that these structures were in use in the
late eighth century B.c., but it is as yet impossible to be
certain how much earlier they were built. This period saw
the flowering of the Lydian Protogeometric-Geometric
style of pottery, distinguished by the use of circles and
half-circles (Figure 10) and wavy vertical lines arranged
in a metope-like pattern executed in black paint on a red
background or in brown on buff.
Of the lowest level only two isolated walls survive; a
black monochrome sherd from this level displays a curious incised design of a mountain and a thunderbolt.
Technique and decoration are suggestive of the Bronze
Age; another sherd, however, with geometric designs
painted in black and red on a white ground, seems to
resemble the pottery of Iron Age Phrygia.
The buildings of the second and third Lydian levels
may have been sanctuaries; a peculiar feature is the frequent occurrence of bowls with a central boss (omphalos) and of large storage vases, some of the latter incised with various signs. Whether these are decoration or
potters' marks or an unknown kind of writing is not as
yet determined.
The excavation at Pactolus North (PN) has not penetrated deeply into the Lydian strata, though small soundings indicate that the earlier Lydian phase (seventh and
eighth centuries b.c.) is represented. Two destruction
levels clearly mark two major events of Lydian historythe capture of Sardis by Cyrus in 547 b.c. and the burning of the city by the Ionians in 499. From the debris of
the buildings destroyed by Cyrus' Persians came the
striking portrait of a Lydian reproduced on the cover of
this issue. White-skinned like a woman, wearing earrings,
clad in a gorgeous purple robe, this bearded dandy well
illustrates the "useless luxuries" which the Ionian Greeks
were said to have learned from the Lydians.
8

Much interesting pottery was found in the level that
intervened between 547 and 499 b.c., but the major interest of this sector lies in the discovery of a monumental
structure from the Achaemenid era, when Sardis was
capital of the most important Persian satrapy in the West.
Built after 499 in more careful technique than the earlier
Lydian walls and preserved up to a height of six feet,
this structure features two apsidal units separated by a
corridor or alley. The Pactolus River has torn off the
outer sections of the apsidal units and their continuation
to the west remains to be investigated, but the intriguing
design bespeaks a building of some importance- either
a fort defending the Pactolus crossing or a residential
complex. Here again a Roman villa with mosaic floors
was built about A.D.400 directly upon the earlier walls.
Herodotus says that at the time of the Ionian rebellion
the Pactolus flowed right through the agora, the civic
center of Sardis. It is not impossible that our excavations
in the region of the House of Bronzes have led us to the
commercial, bazaar-like fringe of the agora, while the
structures in the Pactolus North trench may well be located near the center of the agora. This hypothesis, too,
will be tested in future campaigns.
The western part of the Roman and Early Byzantine
city is being investigated in a sizable area some 600
yards (500 meters) long and over 200 yards wide. On
the south side the city wall, disrupted by robbing of
stones in mediaeval and modern times, climbs a ridge
toward the summit of the acropolis. One stretch of it
(UT) was tested in 1959 and proved to date from the
late fourth or the fifth century a.D. Part of a terraced
construction of the Roman era was uncovered on the
slope which descends toward the House of Bronzes
(Figure 11). Another sizable Roman structure was partly
excavated in I960. Like the House of Bronzes, these
perished in the onslaught of the Sasanian Persians between A.D. 615 and 617. The exploration of this zona
monumentale has brought all sorts of surprises. Thus,

Archaeology Magazine - March 1961

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - March 1961