Professor Nick Cahill (Art History and Classics) and other members of the Sardis Expedition — an archaeological research project working at the site of Sardis in western Turkey — have helped curate an exhibition called "The Lydians and their World" which opened at the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum in Istanbul February, 19, 2010.
The Lydians, famous as the inventors of coinage, and the richest people in the world in the sixth century BC, they established an empire that ruled over most of western Turkey.
The exhibition includes more than 150 Lydian objects from Sardis and other ancient sites throughout the Lydian empire, collected from museums and excavation storage depots throughout Turkey.
This is the first time that so many Lydian objects from many different sites have been seen together and the first time that some of them have been exhibited or published at all.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a 600-700 page catalog with articles by international scholars about various aspects of Lydian culture. The exhibit will run through May.
Highlights include:
- Newly discovered Lydian coins from Sardis, Ephesus and Kelainai, which offer new insights into the origin and dissemination of coinage
- A recently discovered funerary stele from Ödemiş mentioning the Persian king and satrap
- Jewelry and sealstones from tombs at Sardis excavated before the the first World War
- Weapons, armor, and the skeleton of a soldier killed in the battle between Croesus and Cyrus the Great of Persia in 547 BC
Cahill has also been awarded a Vilas Associate Award to work on the coinage of Sardis.