page_title: Prehistory of Anatolia
section_title: Lydia (Maeonia)
hierarchical_section_title: Prehistory of Anatolia / Iron Age / Western Anatolia / Lydia (Maeonia)
caption_attribution_description: English: Source: Maspero, G, History of Egypt: Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria. Vol 9.The Grolier Society, London (1906).
context_page_description: The prehistory of Anatolia stretches from the Paleolithic era through to the appearance of classical civilisation in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. It is generally regarded as being divided into three ages reflecting the dominant materials used for the making of domestic implements and weapons: Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. The term Copper Age is used to denote the period straddling the stone and Bronze Ages.
  Anatolia, also known by the Latin name of Asia Minor, is considered to be the westernmost extent of Western Asia. Geographically it encompasses the central uplands of modern Turkey, from the coastal plain of the Aegean Sea east to the western edge of the Armenian Highlands and from the narrow coast of the Black Sea south to the Taurus mountains and Mediterranean Sea coast.
  The earliest representations of culture in Anatolia can be found in several archaeological sites located in the central and eastern part of the region. Stone Age artifacts such as animal bones and food fossils were found at Burdur.
context_section_description: Lydia, or Maeonia as it was called before 687 BC, was a major part of the history of western Anatolia, beginning with the Atyad dynasty, who first appeared around 1300 BC. Lydia was situated to the west of Phrygia and east of the Aegean settlement of Ionia. The Lydians were Indo-European, speaking an Anatolian language related to Luwian and Hittite.
  The Heraclids, managed to rule successively from 1185–687 BC despite a growing presence of Greek influences along the Mediterranean coast. As Greek cities such as Smyrna, Colophon, and Ephesus rose, the Heraclids became weaker and weaker. The last king, Candaules, was murdered by his friend and lance-bearer named Gyges, and he took over as ruler. Gyges waged war against the intruding Greeks, and soon faced by a grave problem as the Cimmerians began to pillage outlying cities within the kingdom. It was this wave of attacks that led to the incorporation of the formerly independent Phrygia and its capital Gordium into the Lydian domain. It was not until the successive rules of Sadyattes and Alyattes, ending in 560 BC, that the attacks of the Cimmerians ended for good.
  Under the reign of the last Lydian king Croesus, Lydia reached its greatest expansion. Persia was invaded first at the Battle of Pteria ending without a victor. Progressing deeper into Persia, Croesus was thoroughly defeated in the Battle of Thymbra at the hands of the Persian Cyrus II in 546 BC.
  Following Croesus' defeat, Lydia fell under the hegemony of Persia, Greece, Rome and Byzantium until finally being absorbed into the Turkish lands.
caption: Lydian electrum coin, depicting a lion and bull.
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