Pactolus North: Churches E and EA, Roman Villa, and Lydian Gold Refinery and Altar of Cybele

At this excavation sector, located near the Pactolus Stream and outside the city defenses of Sardis, four major features have been recovered (fig. 1).

In the northern part of the sector, Lydian installations (furnaces and cupels) of the first half of the 6th century BC were used for separating electrum (an alloy of gold and silver) into pure gold and pure silver. Nearby is a small altar for offerings to the goddess Cybele.

Buildings and strata of the Achaemenid Persian era, including two apsidal buildings, were excavated beneath a narrow Roman street that runs through the sector.

In the central part of the sector is part of a Roman villa, with mosaic pavings in its larger rooms and with a small private bath (fig. 2). The mosaic pavings, which show animals, birds, and aquatic creatures of different kinds, are now in the Manisa Museum (figs. 2, 3, 4).

A basilica church of the 4th century AD, of which only part has been excavated, lies across the narrow street from the villa (fig. 5).

A small, multi-dome church with ornate exterior decoration was built over the ruined 4th century church in the 13th century AD, when Byzantine government headquarters were located at nearby Nymphaeum (Kemalpaşa) and Magnesia at Sipylum (Manisa) (fig. 6).

The “gold refinery” contains installations for separating electrum, an alloy (natural or artificial) of gold and silver, into its component elements. It was used during the first half of the 6th century BC in the era of Lydian King Croesus, during the period when the world’s first gold and silver coins were being minted (figs. 7, 8).

The principal techniques were cementation, smelting, and cupellation. Cementation was used to recover pure gold from electrum. Thin sheets of electrum were placed in a ceramic pot, separated by a mixture of salt and brick dust (fig. 9). The mixture was cooked at low temperatures in ovens until only pure gold was left. Smelting and cupellation were techniques to recover silver from the brick dust, salt, and pottery. The silver-rich materials were smelted with lead to produce a silver-lead amalgam; which then was heated in cupels (“bowl hearths”) to isolate metallic silver. Hundreds of cupels were recovered in excavation (figs. 10, 11, 12).

Nearby is an altar of small schist stones, built shortly after the refining installations, probably dedicated to Kuvava (Cybele) and possibly created as a thank offering for success in refining processes (figs. 13, 14). Small limestone statues of lions were set on the corners of this altar (see Lydians and Their World cat. 13, 14). In the fifth century BC a new altar built of larger stones was constructed on top of the original structure, covering the Lydian lions.

Greenewalt, “Gold and Silver Refining at Sardis”; Ramage and Craddock, King Croesus’ Gold; Buchwald, “Sardis Church E: A Preliminary Report”; Buchwald, Churches E and EA at Sardis; Cahill et al., “Depletion-Gilding of Lydian Electrum Coins and the Sources of Lydian Gold”.