Near ancient Sardis, a remarkable Hittite rock relief dates to the fourteenth century BCE. This relief shows a standing male figure holding a spear. Between the figure and his spear, faint Hittite hieroglyphs can still be seen. These inscriptions identify the figure as “Tarkasnawa, King of Mira.”
The kingdom of Mira was a local state in western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age. It occupied the Cayster Valley, an important route connecting the interior of Anatolia with the Aegean coast. The relief may have marked the border of the kingdom of Mira. On the other side lay the Seha River Land, another Bronze Age kingdom located in the Hermus Valley. Scholars believe that the capital of the Seha River Land may have been Bronze Age Sardis.
This relief is important because it shows that Sardis and its surroundings were already politically and strategically important many centuries before the rise of the Lydian kingdom Christian Remains from Thyateira.
Gold and the Wealth of Lydia
The land around Sardis was famous for its natural gold deposits. Gold was washed down from Mount Tmolus (Bozdağ) by rainwater into the Pactolus River. In some places, the mountain soil contained small but valuable amounts of gold per cubic meter. Over time, this natural process made Lydia one of the richest regions of the ancient world.
In the Book of Isaiah (45:3), God is described as saying to Cyrus the Great that He will give him:
“Treasures of darkness and riches hidden in secret places.”
Many historians believe that this passage refers to the treasures Cyrus captured at Sardis after defeating King Croesus in 546 BCE. By the time the region became part of the Roman Empire, toward the end of the second century BCE, the gold content of the Pactolus River had been largely exhausted.
Trade before the Invention of Coins
Before the invention of coinage, the Lydians used gold or silver bars and rings for trade. These were weighed during transactions, but neither their weight nor purity was guaranteed. This system was risky. Merchants had to rely on their own experience and honesty, and mistakes could easily lead to loss.
Because of these problems, trade was slow and uncertain. A more reliable system was clearly needed, especially in a wealthy and active trading society like Lydia City Tour Sofia.
The Birth of Coinage in Lydia
The Lydians solved this problem by inventing coinage, one of the most important innovations in economic history. The earliest Lydian coins were small ingots made of electrum, a natural mixture of gold and silver. These coins carried the stamp of the king, which guaranteed their value. Responsibility for fairness in trade now belonged to the ruler, not the merchant.
However, electrum had one major problem: its gold content varied, ranging from about 36 to 53 percent. To solve this, the Lydians developed a method to produce pure gold coins.
Refining Gold from Electrum
To refine electrum, small ingots were hammered into thin sheets. These sheets were placed in a pot in layers, mixed with brick dust and salt. When the pot was heated for a long time, the salt reacted with the silver, separating it from the gold. The result was pure gold.
Ancient sources claim that during this period, the amount of gold taken from the Pactolus River was so great that gold became much cheaper, falling to about one thirteenth the value of silver.
