Sardis was the capital of Lydia, and it is the only Lydian city we know — the centre of a culture native to Anatolia that stood from the ninth to the sixth century BC. The site is by the Sart quarter of Salihli in Manisa, nine kilometres from the centre of Salihli and eighty-two from İzmir, with the İzmir–Ankara road running straight through it.
The city was laid out on and around a hill at the northern foot of Mount Bozdağ, the ancient Tmolos, in the valley of the Pactolus on the Gediz plain, and its acropolis stands four hundred metres above the plain. The Greek historian Polybios called it the strongest place in the world, and the walls bear him out: twenty metres thick, and still ten to fourteen metres high in places. People have lived here for at least three and a half thousand years, and across that span the place moved back and forth between a wealthy city of international standing and a scatter of modest villages.
The Lydians are credited with striking the world's first metal coinage here. Their neighbours took up the technique within a short time, and it changed the way economies worked — which is the main reason a visitor who knows nothing else about Lydia has heard of it.
Herodotus gives a legend that the city was founded by the Heraclids, the sons of Heracles. On his reckoning they ruled for five hundred and five years, from Agron in 1220 BC to Candaules in 716 BC, and were followed by the Mermnads, from Gyges in 716 BC to Croesus in 546 BC — the king whose name still stands for wealth.
Eight kilometres north, on the shore of Lake Marmara, the Gygaean Lake of antiquity, lies the other half of the site: Bin Tepeler, the thousand mounds. This is Lydian burial ground spread over about 7,500 hectares, one of the largest cemeteries in the world, with more than 119 tumuli recorded and dates running from the sixth to the fourth century BC. UNESCO inscribed Sardis together with the Lydian tumuli of Bin Tepeler on the World Heritage List in 2025, as file 1731, under criterion (iii). Excavation continues under the Sardis excavation directorate, with conservation carried out by an interdisciplinary team.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Manisa as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.7 °C in January to 28.1 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in April, May, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (137 mm) and lightest in August (9 mm). Long-term means for 1930-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 08:00 - 19:00
Getting there
- Access
- From Salihli, follow the paved road to Sart; the ruins lie on both sides of the road as it passes through Sart.
