Lydians

[9] Lydian texts discovered to date are not numerous and usually short, but close liaisons maintained between leading scholars of Anatolian linguistics enables constant impetus and progress in the field, new epigraphical findings, evidence being added and new words being recorded continuously.

A difficulty in compounding Lydian religion and mythology remains as reciprocal contacts and transfer with ancient Greek concepts occurred for over a millennium from the Bronze Age to classical (Persian) times.

Among other divine figures of the Lydian pantheon which still remain relatively obscure, Santai, Kuvava's escort and sometimes a hero burned on a pyre, and Marivda(s), associated with darkness, may be cited.

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus and Dione and sister of Pelops and Broteas, had known Arachne, a Lydian woman, when she was still in Lydia/Maeonia in her father's lands near to Mount Sipylus, according to Ovid's account.

These eponymous figures may have corresponded to the obscure ages associated with the semi-legendary dynasty of the Atyads or Tantalids, and situated around the time of the emergence of a Lydian nation from their predecessors or previous identities as Maeonians and Luvians.

Lydian soldier ( Old Persian cuneiform 𐎿𐎱𐎼𐎭 , Sparda ) [ 1 ] of the Achaemenid army , Xerxes I tomb, c. 480 BC .
Lydia c. 50 AD , with the main settlements and Greek colonies.
Map of the Lydian Empire in its final period of sovereignty under Croesus , 6th century BC.
(7th century BC boundary in red)
Portrait of Croesus, last King of Lydia, Attic red-figure amphora, painted c. 500–490 BCE .
Early 6th century BC coin minted by a King of Lydia
Lydian delegation at Apadana, c. 500 BC
Marble stele with Lydian text. Like other scripts of Anatolia in the Iron Age, the Lydian alphabet is related to the East Greek alphabet, but it has unique features.
Mount Tmolus ( Bozdağ today) in the Lydian heartland.
"King Croesus Receiving Tribute from a Lydian Peasant", 1629 painting by Claude Vignon