THE RUINS OF SARDIS ARE located in what is now the small town of Sart in Turkey. What is today an archaeological site filled with ancient buildings was once the grand capital of the kingdom of Lydia. The Lydian kingdom flourished in the Iron Age, until it was conquered by Cyrus the Great, king of Achaemenid Persia, in 546 B.C.
Two centuries later, Sardis surrendered to Alexander the Great, then fell into the hands of the Romans, and then was conquered by the Byzantine Empire. A rivalry with the Seljuk Turks followed, around which time the city’s decline began. In 1402, when the city was captured by the Turco-Mongol warlord Timur (also known as Tamerlane), it had been all but destroyed and was left to ruin until archaeological excavations began in the 19th century.
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