Older Inscriptions

Also uncovered in the Lydian Bazaar were three inscriptions from the 6th century B.C. incised on plain pots. Experts believe the language is Carian, that of a people who lived south of the Lydians and whom the Lydians employed as mercenaries.

The archaeologists also found several little blobs of copper, identical in shape and weight with the earliest know gold and silver coins of Lydia. They may prove to be the earliest units of small currency and thus of importance in finding out how the Lydians happened to invent money.

On the towering citadel of Sardis, the Harvard-Cornell team found that a deep gorge, which once cleaved the peak, had been filled with rock and refuse swept from fallen buildings. Some of the pottery pieces found in the gorge are identical with crockery of the Phyrgians. According to ancient traditions, the Phyrgians were once overlords over the Lydians, and the new findings help to confirm this.

Stepped Monument

The expedition finished excavating a great Persian stepped monument, perhaps the one referred to by the ancient historian Xenophon as the sepulchre of Abradatas and his faithful wife Pantheia. On the banks of the torrent Pactolus, the archaeologists also uncovered an Early Christian vault with wall paintings of birds and flowers.

Geophysics joined archeology this summer. The expedition tested geophysics equipment designed to discover underground structures. This project, begun in cooperation with the Geophysics Department of MIT, will continue next season when new areas of the ancient city, untouched by previous explorers, are opened up.

The excavations at Sardis are conducted by Cornell University and the Fogg Museum of Harvard and sponsored by the American Schools of Oriental Research, with funds contributed by the operating institutions, the Bollingen Foundation of New York and for 1961, by the Corning Glass Works Foundation