Movement of Monumental Marble to Lydian Sardis

Recent work at Sardis indicates that marble used in Lydian architecture is not from local quarries. Using stable isotope and petrographic analysis, we discovered that the marble from the mid-sixth century B.C. tumulus of Alyattes was not quarried from the Sardis quarries on the slopes of Mt. Tmolus.

Isotopic, petrographic, and historical evidence are consistent with the importation of marble from Ephesos where local sources are known to have been open for the construction of the Artemision, ca. a560 B.C. Ephesos is a good isotopic match, but other possibilities exist in less well studied quarries, such as those at Mermere (Golmarmara), 30 km away, which is not a particularly good fit, or Mt. Sipylos (Manisa), 60 km away, which has never been sampled.

The marble of the tomb chamber of Alyattes weighs at least 100 tons, and the prospect of transporting such an amount over a long distance is not to be taken lightly. The fact that the source sis not local to the city of Sardis suggests a preference for imported stone, and that the Lydian kings would go to great lengths to acquire foreign marble.