The partially restored synagogue and the ruins of temples and churches mark the importance of Sardis as a religious site. Beginning in the 6th century BC Sardis was the terminus of the main east-west Royal Road. As the capital of Lydia it was the commercial center of the western Mediterranean well into 1st century BC. On the main highway east from İzmir, now surrounded with rich farm land, Sardis owed much of its power to the gold that its kings took from the Pactolus (Sart çayı) stream that comes down out of Mt. Tmolus (Bozdağ). The Lydian empire...Read More