The site's proximity to earlier Bronze Age settlement mounds suggests that it may have been chosen to provide a symbolic link to the past.

[2][4](pp142–144) The style remained in use after the fall of the Lydian Empire in 546 BC, with many of the datable examples at Bin Tepe having been constructed during the subsequent Persian period.

[2] The Tumulus of Alyattes (Turkish: Koca Mutaf Tepe) is the largest at the site, with a height of 63m, a base diameter of 330m, and a total volume of 785,000 m3.

[1](pp1115, 1117, 1124–1125)[2][3] Two other tumuli of exceptional size were traditionally identified as tombs of other kings of the Mermnad dynasty, but these identifications are not accepted by modern scholars.

The second largest tumulus (Koca Mutaf Tepe) is 53m tall, with a base diameter of 230m, its footprint roughly equal to that of the Great Pyramid at Giza.

Archaeologists have speculated that it may have been built for a queen, since its size suggests a royal burial and no other king of the relevant period is a plausible candidate.

There is in Lydia the tomb of Alyattes the father of Croesus, the base whereof is made of great stones and the rest of it of mounded earth.