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Persian Riders In Lydia? The Painted Frieze Of The Aktepe Tomb Kline, Elizabeth P. Baughan

Classical Studies Faculty Publications

Aktepe lies within a cluster of tumuli near Güre in eastern Lydia, where many items in the famous ‘Lydian Treasure’ were unearthed by tomb-robbers in the late 1960s¹. It had the most lavishly decorated chamber of them all, with an ornamental façade, false barrel vault, and life-sized human figures painted on the side walls, one on each side of a monolithic limestone burial couch resembling a Greek-style kline with volute and palmette decoration (figs. 1–2)². Based on the style of the wall-paintings and the masonry, the tomb has generally been dated c. 525–500 BC, early in …