The ancient city of Sardis in western Turkey has been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List after nearly seven decades of excavation and research. Archaeologists have worked at the site every year since 1958 through the Harvard Cornell Exploration of Ancient Sardis, making it one of the longest-running institutional excavation projects of its kind.
The UNESCO recognition follows decades of discoveries across a settlement whose history extends from the Bronze Age, in the third millennium BCE, to the present day. Sardis was once the capital of the Iron Age kingdom of Lydia and later became part of territories controlled by Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire and the Ottoman Empire.
Because the site was not covered by a modern city, archaeological remains from different periods survive across the landscape. Researchers have uncovered the Temple of Artemis, the acropolis, mud-brick city walls, a Persian-period garbage pit, a gold-refining workshop, an ancient shopping district and a sanctuary plaza that took 15 years to excavate. Work in the 1950s and 1960s also led to the reconstruction of a monumental bath-gymnasium complex and what the source describes as the largest synagogue in the ancient world.
Benjamin Anderson, an associate professor at Cornell University, said the project’s institutional continuity has allowed evidence from different excavation seasons and generations of researchers to be studied together. He has focused in recent years on documenting the walls and buildings of the acropolis, which became an important center during the Byzantine period after Roman rule.
Annetta Alexandridis, an associate professor at Cornell, is studying Roman funerary culture and leading a survey of Sardis’ cemeteries. Many have received less attention than Bin Tepe, a cemetery about 10 kilometers north of the city containing some of the largest recorded burial mounds.
The site also carries a complicated modern archaeological history. Early-20th-century excavations uncovered major remains, but some artifacts were damaged, disappeared or taken to the United States through questionable means. Some objects were later returned to Turkey, placing Sardis within broader debates over restitution, stewardship and responsibility for cultural heritage.
Researchers say UNESCO recognition could bring greater funding, tourism, research and protection. Sardis remains vulnerable to erosion, farming damage and looting, including the use of explosives and bulldozers against burial mounds. Archaeologists emphasize that the city’s history is still emerging as evidence accumulated over decades continues to be examined.
