Lydian

Lydian refers to Lydia, an ancient region in western Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) and to the people who inhabited it, the Lydians. The core of Lydia lay around the capital Sardis, with its territory extending to the Aegean coast and inland valleys. In historical terms, Lydia formed one of the major powers of western Asia Minor during the Iron Age, interacting with neighboring Phrygia, Ionia, and Caria.

Lydia rose to prominence under early dynasts such as Gyges, Alyattes, and Croesus in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE. The kingdom is noted for its wealth and for developing standardized coinage, culminating in the so-called Croesus coinage—typically cited as among the first true gold and silver coins in circulation. Lydia’s power waned after its defeat by Cyrus the Great in 546 BCE, when it became part of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. It later came under Hellenistic rule, and eventually Roman control.

Lydian language and script are distinct from Greek. Lydian is an extinct Anatolian Indo-European language known from inscriptions dating from roughly the 7th to the 1st centuries BCE. The Lydian alphabet, related to other Anatolian scripts, shares affinities with Phrygian and early Greek scripts, and some texts exist in bilingual contexts.

In music theory, the term Lydian also denotes a mode or scale. The Lydian mode is the fourth mode of the major scale, characterized by a raised fourth degree. In modern practice, a C Lydian scale would be C-D-E-F#-G-A-B-C, giving a distinctive raised fourth interval.

The word Lydian, therefore, covers ancient people, their language and scripts, a notable monetary innovation, and a musical mode that persists in theory today.

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