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  Shown within Turkey | |
| Alternative name | Bintepe |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 38°34′48″N28°00′26″E / 38.5800°N 28.0072°E |
| Type | Necropolis |
| Part of | Lydia |
| History | |
| Founded | c. 600 BC |
| Site notes | |
| Excavation dates | 1854-present |
Bin Tepe is an archaeological site on the southern shore of Marmara Lake in Manisa Province, Turkey. Consisting of over 100 tumuli, it served as a cemetery for the elites of nearby Sardis. [1] (p1121) [2] [3]
Bin Tepe is an ancient cemetery consisting of over 100 tumuli. [2] Located near the Lydian capital city of Sardis, it served local elites during the Lydian and Achaemenid periods. [1] (p1121) [2]
Bin Tepe sits on a low limestone ridge to the north of Sardis. [1] (p1112) [2] Its elevation and proximity to a major travel route made the tumuli conspicuous to ancient travellers, as they continue to be for modern visitors. The site's proximity to earlier Bronze Age settlement mounds suggests that it may have been chosen to provide a symbolic link to the past. [2] [4] (p147) The burials were organized in groups, likely corresponding to families or estates. [4] (pp99–100) While there were once at least 149 tumuli at the site, there are now only around 115, the others having been destroyed for farmland. [2]
The tumuli consist of stone burial chambers covered by large earthen mounds. The burial chambers were either constructed from slabs or cut into the bedrock, and were generally located off-center to deter grave robbers. [2] Mounds were often ringed with a retaining wall called a "crepis". [4] (p142) [2] Crepis walls, many of which no longer survive, gave the mound a defined edge and held the dirt fill in place. [2]
The earliest of the Bin Tepe tumuli date from around 600 BC, seemingly adapted from Phrygian royal burials at the Phrygian capital city of Gordion. [2] [4] (pp142–144) The style remained in use after the fall of the Lydian Empire in 546 BC, with many of the datable examples at Bin Tepe having been constructed during the subsequent Persian period. [2] [1] (p1121) Throughout their period of use at Sardis, they coexisted with other styles including rock-cut tombs and cist graves. [2]
The Tumulus of Alyattes (Turkish : Koca Mutaf Tepe) is the largest at the site, with a height of 63m, a base diameter of 330m, and a total volume of 785,000 m3. It is generally accepted as the tomb of the Lydian king Alyattes who died in 560 BC. It has been estimated that it would have taken two and a half years to build with 2,400 labourers and 600 beasts of burden. The burial chamber is built from limestone and marble with a style of masonry which reflects Greek and Near Eastern influence. Despite being constructed to deter grave robbers, it was nonetheless heavily looted in antiquity. Few grave goods and no human remains have been found. [1] (pp1115, 1117, 1124–1125) [2] [3]
Two other tumuli of exceptional size were traditionally identified as tombs of other kings of the Mermnad dynasty, but these identifications are not accepted by modern scholars. The second largest tumulus (Koca Mutaf Tepe) is 53m tall, with a base diameter of 230m, its footprint roughly equal to that of the Great Pyramid at Giza. This tumulus was traditionally attributed to King Gyges, but pottery fragments in the mound show that it post-dates his reign by at least forty years. It appears to have been built over an unfinished smaller tumulus. Archaeologists have speculated that it may have been built for a queen, since its size suggests a royal burial and no other king of the relevant period is a plausible candidate. [2] [1] (pp1115, 1117, 1124–1125) [3]
Bin Tepe has been a conspicuous feature of the landscape since its construction. The Tumulus of Alyattes was described by Herodotus in his Histories as follows:
But there is one building to be seen there which is more notable than any, saving those of Egypt and Babylon. There is in Lydia the tomb of Alyattes the father of Croesus, the base whereof is made of great stones and the rest of it of mounded earth. It was built by the men of the market and the artificers and the prostitutes. There remained till my time five corner-stones set on the top of the tomb, and on these was graven the record of the work done by each kind: and measurement showed that the prostitutes' share of the work was the greatest.
— Herodotus 1-93. [5]
The tumuli have been thoroughly looted since ancient times, destroying much of the archaeological evidence they once contained. The first systematic study was carried out by Prussian consul Ludwig Peter Spiegelthal, who excavated the Tumulus of Alyattes in 1853. Archaeological excavation of the other tumuli began in 1880 and continue to the present day. Despite the looters' destruction, remaining evidence has provided insight into Lydian society and beliefs. The tumuli are particularly important for our understanding of the Persian Period of Lydian history, which is much better attested at Bin Tepe than it is at Sardis itself. [2] [3]
Alyattes, sometimes described as Alyattes I, was the fourth king of the Mermnad dynasty in Lydia, the son of Sadyattes, grandson of Ardys, and great-grandson of Gyges. He died after a reign of 57 years and was succeeded by his son Croesus.
Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom situated in the west of Asia Minor, in modern-day Turkey. Later, it became an important province of the Achaemenid Empire and then the Roman Empire. Its capital was Sardis.
Midas was a king of Phrygia with whom many myths became associated, as well as two later members of the Phrygian royal house.
Sardis or Sardes 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 Persian satrapy of Lydia and later a major center of Hellenistic and Byzantine culture. Now an active archaeological site, it is located in modern day Turkey, in Manisa Province, near the town of Sart.
A tomb or sepulcher is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called immurement, although this word mainly means entombing people alive, and is a method of final disposition, as an alternative to cremation or burial.
Croesus 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."
Gyges was the founder of the Mermnad dynasty of Lydian kings and the first known king of the Lydian kingdom to have attempted to transform it into a powerful empire. Gyges reigned 38 years according to Herodotus.
Sadyattes was the third king of the Mermnad dynasty in Lydia, the son of Ardys and the grandson of Gyges of Lydia. Sadyattes reigned 12 years according to Herodotus.
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or kurgans, and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones built for various purposes, may also originally have been a tumulus.
Kofun are megalithic tombs or tumuli in Northeast Asia. Kofun were mainly constructed in the Japanese archipelago between the middle of the 3rd century to the early 7th century AD.
A necropolis is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek νεκρόπολις nekropolis.
Wall Painting in Turkey often reflects influences from the eastern and western styles and subject matters that date back to the Neolithic Age as the region has been a crossroads between Europe and the Middle East.
Gordion was the capital city of ancient Phrygia. It was located at the site of modern Yassıhüyük, about 70–80 km (43–50 mi) southwest of Ankara, in the immediate vicinity of Polatlı district. Gordion's location at the confluence of the Sakarya and Porsuk rivers gave it a strategic location with control over fertile land. Gordion lies where the ancient road between Lydia and Assyria/Babylonia crossed the Sangarius river. Occupation at the site is attested from the Early Bronze Age continuously until the 4th century CE and again in the 13th and 14th centuries CE. The Citadel Mound at Gordion is approximately 13.5 hectares in size, and at its height habitation extended beyond this in an area approximately 100 hectares in size. Gordion is the type site of Phrygian civilization, and its well-preserved destruction level of c. 800 BCE is a chronological linchpin in the region. The long tradition of tumuli at the site is an important record of elite monumentality and burial practice during the Iron Age.
A spectacular collection of furniture and wooden artifacts was excavated by the University of Pennsylvania at the site of Gordion, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Phrygia in the early first millennium BC. The best preserved of these works came from three royal burials, surviving nearly intact due to the relatively stable conditions that had prevailed inside the tomb chambers. The Gordion wooden objects are now recognized as the most important collection of wooden finds recovered from the ancient Near East.
The Mozu Tombs are a group of kofun —megalithic tombs—in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. Originally consisting of more than 100 tombs, only less than 50% of the key-hole, round, and rectangular tombs remain.
The Takayasu Senzuka Kofun Cluster is a group of Kofun period burial mounds, distributed around the foot of Mount Takayasu at elevations of 50 to 300 meters, in the city of Yao, Osaka Prefecture. in the Kansai region of Japan. The tumulus group was designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 2015.
There are two tumuli at Marathon, Greece. One is a burial mound, or "Soros" that houses the ashes of 192 Athenians who fell during the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. The other houses the inhumed bodies of the Plataeans who fell during that same battle. The burial mound dominates the plain of Marathon, where the eponymous battle took place, along with the tumulus of the Plataeans, and a victory column erected by the Athenians to commemorate their victory over Darius' Persian expedition. The tumulus is encompassed in a park today.
Hermodike II has been attributed with inventing coinage by Aristotle. Other historians have translated the name as Hermodice, Damodice or Demodike as translated by Julius Pollux.
The Lydian–Milesian War was a military conflict between the Kingdom of Lydia and the ancient Greek city state of Miletus. It took place during the 7th century BC in the Archaic period, traditionally set between 612 and 600 BC. The main source of the war is Herodotus, who wrote about it in the opening chapters of his Histories. The war ended after 12 years when the tyrant of Miletus, Thrasybulus of Miletus, convinced the Lydian king Alyattes to sue for peace with a ruse, after which an alliance between the two states was forged. Amongst other things, the length of the war has caused debate among modern historians.