They then have emerged for the Luwian-speaking peoples who widespread in western and central Anatolia at the time of the Hittite Empire.
After the collapse of the Hittite Empire, the Lydians regained their independence and gradually became strong.
They established a kingdom centered on the city of Sardis (45 miles inland from the modern Turkish city of Izmir) around 1200 BC.
Izmir was the site of the oldest human settlements in the Mediterranean world, going back to 4000 BC or even earlier.
Lydia had excellent trade routes to the east and west and had its own reserves of gold and silver.
According to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, the Lydians were the first people to invent coinage.
Lydia was renowned for its wealth in ancient Persian and Greek literature, and King Croesus has passed into legend as a figure of unparalleled wealth.
In 546 BC Lydia fell under the expanding power of Persia, which was reaching for the Aegean.
Lydia was then made a province of the Medo-Persian Empire and never recovered its independence.
Under Persian rule, Lydia remained an important province until it was conquered by Alexander the Great.
Lydian empire
