Describing the approach toward Sardis in the spring of 1699, the British antiquary Edmund Chishull wrote: ‘We continue our journey through a spatious and fertile plain, curiously beset on each side the road with [a] variety of round hillocks, which from their number, figure, and situation, in so level a campaign, appear plainly to be artificial’. The tumuli or burial mounds so described by Chishull still dominate the Hermus river plain opposite Sardis. Their modern name is Bin Tepe, or ‘Thousand Mounds’.

No abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. The American School of Classical Studies at Athens is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. T O A TRAVELER approaching Sardis, whether eastward up the valley of the Hermus or westward to Ionia, a dominant natural feature of the lower part of the city is a pair of flat-topped hills that project from the north slope of the acropolis like promontories overlooking the Hermus river plain.' Between 1983 and 1991, the Harvard/Cornell Sardis Expedition carried out a series of excavations on the western hill of this pair, which was occupied from the 7th century B.C. to the 6th century after Christ (Fig. 1:23 [grid square E 600-700/S 300-400], P1. 81:a, arrow). A major result of these excavations was the recovery of a rich and closely datable assemblage of Archaic architectural terracottas.2Since 1958, the year of the Sardis Expedition's first campaign, the archaeological nickname given to this hill or spur has been the "Byzantine Fortress", so called after the sizeable chunks of Late Antique masonry visible in several places on the slopes of the hill. It has always been clear, however, that the hill was first occupied long before the Byzantine era; the surrounding area is unusually rich in surface finds of Archaic date, and it was long suspected that the evident terracing of the north and east sides of the hill might also belong in its earliest phases to the Archaic period. George Hanfmann, in a speculative article published in 1975, even suggested that the so-called Byzantine Fortress was possibly the site of the palace of Croesus.3On the basis of a surface survey conducted in 198 1,4 the northeast corner of the hill, retitled "Sector ByzFort", was chosen as the starting point of a program of excavation, begun in 1983 for the purpose of investigating the early history of this site. Over the course of the next eight years, an area of approximately 650 square meters was exposed across the north end of the hill, and several smaller trenches were dug in various locations to the south and east (Fig. 2). The principal result of these excavations was the discovery of a large terrace wall, built of limestone ashlar masonry, enclosing the hill on its north and east sides 1 This report is based on research conducted under the auspices of the Sardis Expedition and its sponsors, Harvard and Cornell Universities; I am grateful to the field director, Crawford H. Greenewalt, Jr., both for permission to work on this subject and for his kind advice and encouragement. My thanks are also due to Andrew Ramage and Nancy A. Winter, who gave me many helpful criticisms and suggestions; to Maria Daniels, wh...

No abstract

No abstract