Don't Miss!
Watch an old lady cooking Turkish pancakes, “gozleme”!
Did You Know?
First coin was invented in Anatolia by the Lydian king Croesus in the 6th century BC. The English phrase “rich as Croesus” comes from him and his treasures. Lydian capital Sardis is also one of the 7 Churches of the Apocalypse.
Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish provinces of Uşak, Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian.
At its greatest extent, the Kingdom of Lydia covered all of western Anatolia. Lydia (known as Sparda by the Achaemenids) was a satrapy (province) of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, with Sardis as its capital. Tabalus, appointed by Cyrus the Great, was the first satrap (governor).
Lydia was later the name of a Roman province. Coins are said to have been invented in Lydia around the 7th century BC.