Monday, January 3, 2011

What a Day In Sardis...


Staying at the Lidya Sardes Hotel and Spa was a pleasure...
the Turkish people are friendly &  helpful in a way that you 
feel that they are enjoying serving you...

As promised by Vedat Ordu, the front desk manager, I was met at 10:00 by: 



Mustafa Uçar 

and 
Beyazit Tan...






Mustafa has written a book entitled "Sardes", for which he spent ten years researching...
(Thank you Mustafa...my books are the fortunate recipients of your knowledge)
I was told that Mustafa did not speak much English , so it seemed a good idea to have a 
translator along...that would be Beyazit...I know girls...simmer down now...
The funny thing was that mustafa understood everything I said, and I think having 
Beyazit along as a safety net, removed any reticence that Mustafa had about speaking, 
so it turned out to be three guys out to review and discover the history of Sardis...




Arriving at the gate 
to the ruins...
we encountered a sight 
that has been a part of this 
landscape since 
time immemorial...

The sheep were shorn by this time...and they were everywhere we looked...


you'll see them in the background of many of the pictures to follow...
and 'twas thus in the time of the Hittites who proceded Gyges, (Grandfather)
Alyattes, (Father) and Crœsus...
Mustafa explained that Crœsus' palace had been built almost 500 years before he occupied it, high at the top of Mount Hyde (pronounced 'heethay')
...that is the mountain in the background of the picture just to the left here...in the foreground we see  Roman ruins...the large blocks of stone in the front are from Crœsus' time and are sandstone...behind them the columns are made of marble  taken from Mount Tmolus...
That is Mount Tmolus behind the
smiling faces of Mustafa and Beyazit...

I think they're smiling because we had
made the decision not to climb 
Mount Tmolus today...:)

According to Mustafa, Crœsus' grandfather, Gydes, was the first to create a coin...Alyattes, Crœsus'
father, built upon them and Crœsus, who is most important in my books, was the king who really put them to use and is referred to by many as the father of the coin...
This is how the coins looked in Crœsus' time...
The Lion, the Eagle and the Bull
were all symbols of Lydia

And it is said that the sunburst 
around the lion's head is 
Crœsus' personal symbol...


The coins were fashioned out of electrum, a natural amalgam found on the shores 
of the nearby Pactolus river...
What looks like a small muddy stream today was once a navigable river... smaller boats were either rowed or pulled by animals along the shore...

The larger ships were moored about 6 kilometers downstream where the Pactolus meets the Hermos River, which flows into the Aegean Sea

My characters sailed from Samos, up the Aegean to Smyrna (Izmir today)
then up the Hermos (against the flow of the river) and moored at the junction of the Pactolus River...Here is a video that explains it better...



Once their ships were moored, they were taken by smaller boats up the Pactolus into Sardis...they were either rowed or towed by mules or oxen, walking on the shoreline, pulling the boats along by ropes tied to their yokes...

Having arrived...they would venture up mount Hyde to Crœsus' palace...



Here are some interesting pics as well as writer's theories as well as facts about Crœsus and his Lydia...

Crœsus is credited with creating 'Legal Tender'...the coins of his father and grandfathers reigns were made of electrum...a naturally occurring substance that consists of bout 50+% gold, 40+% silver and the rest copper...these were used for coins first by the Lydians...

Crœsus created a mint, where the electrum was melted in three processes that yielded pure gold, pire silver and pure copper...

He used these pure substances to create coins of varied denominations

Here are some examples of those coins below...

As mentioned previously, Lydia 's Symbols were the Lion, the Eagle and the Bull...you will recognize these in the examples here...








Artists in the 16th Century painted scenes from the legend of Crœsus...here are a few


Solon and Croesus 1624

Gerrit Van Honthorst













Claude Vignon - 1593-1670














Croesus and Solon





about 1610, Hendrick van 


Steenwyck the Younger










The Delphic Oracle, 1899


John William Godward




Here's a legend of Crœsus and the lady on our left...






Croesus and the Delphi Oracle

The Delphi Oracle was renowned both for the ambiguity and the occasional plain accuracy of its answers. Croeus, king of Lydia [560-520BC], wanted to test the most highly regarded Greek oracles. He sent messengers to each one of them with instructions to ask, after exactly 100 days had passed, the following question: “What is the king of Lydia doing today?” Five of the oracles were wrong. A sixth was close. The oracle at Delphi replied as follows:

Lo, in my sense there striketh the smell of a shell-covered tortoise,
Boiling now in a fire, with the flesh of a lamb in a cauldron.
Brass is the vessel below, and brass the cover above.

As it happened, Croesus was, at that very moment, cooking a lamb-and-tortoise stew in a brass pot. Convinced of the oracle’s accuracy, he questioned it about the weightier question on his mind, namely the Persian Wars. The answer was that a great army would be defeated. Taking this for a good omen, Croesus sent his army into battle against Cyrus the Great. Again the oracle hit the mark, but it was Croesus’ army that was defeated.



And so the legend continues that Cyrus' having destroyed Crœsus's kingdom did what victorious kings do to the vanquished...he placed him on a funeral pyre and lit it...

But, Crœsus prayed to Apollo and a thunder storm occurred and the rains extinguished the fire...

Cyrus interpreted  this as an omen and took Crœsus as his advisor...

It is said that Crœsus lived out his life in peace...



What a man! That's who I want Æsop representing...

And that is just what he does...(you'll enjoy this more when you read the book...:)

So now, having followed Quincy Jones mantra..."If You DOn't Go, You Don't Know',

I now have vivid memories of Sardis that will color my stories from henceforth...

Walking this land and seeing the mountains that my characters saw has a great influence

on what I see when I am writing...

For me, the stories I write come in on a consistent basis...and form the basis of the greater work...

it appears almost as a skeleton...complete from head to toe...then the flesh, muscles,

tendons and bones as well as the lungs, heart and breath come from what I experienced

by visiting places such as Sardis and breathing the air of his great land...

Thank you Sardis, Thank you Lidya Sardes Hotel and especially Mustafa and Beyazit

We are now Facebook friends and staying in touch!

And here is the Fable of the Week...


The Lioness 

        A CONTROVERSY prevailed among the beasts of the field as to which

of the animals deserved the most credit for producing the

greatest number of whelps at a birth.  They rushed clamorously

into the presence of the Lioness and demanded of her the

settlement of the dispute.  "And you," they said, "how many sons

have you at a birth?'  The Lioness laughed at them, and said:

"Why! I have only one; but he is a Lion." 

 

Thank you and a Happy New Year to all!

A grateful Thomas...:)