Bin Tepe means a thousand mounds, and the name is only a mild exaggeration. On a low ridge north of the Gediz river plain, a few kilometres from the shore of Lake Marmara, the kings and nobles of ancient Lydia were buried under hundreds of earth tumuli, some of them enormous. Lydia, with its capital at Sardis, was the kingdom of Croesus, whose name became a byword for wealth, and the first state in the world to mint coins from electrum, the natural gold and silver alloy washed down from the mountains. The mounds date mostly from the seventh to the sixth centuries BC, and they were the funeral monuments of a rich, confident civilisation.
The largest is the tomb of Alyattes, the father of Croesus, which Herodotus described in the fifth century BC, noting its great stone base and the stone markers on top that listed the contributions of tradesmen, craftsmen and, he said, girls who worked as prostitutes, who had paid for the largest share. It is some three hundred and fifty metres across and stands more than sixty metres high, one of the biggest burial mounds in the world, a rounded hill of grass and thorn that you could mistake for natural if it were not so regular. A tunnel dug by looters in the nineteenth century leads to the stone burial chamber, and archaeologists have since explored it. The site, with other mounds spread around, is on the World Heritage list.
The riding is in the Gediz country, a broad fertile plain of cotton, vines, sultanas and tobacco, with low mountains on either side and straight roads with long views. The surface is generally good on the main roads and rougher on farm tracks, and tractors, trucks and farm workers on bicycles share the lanes. Summer is very hot, with the hills pale and dry, and spring has green fields and red poppies. Dust can rise in the heat of the day, and an early start is a sensible idea.
Ahmetli, about eight kilometres away, has fuel and cafes, and Salihli, the bigger town to the east, has services of every kind and is the gateway to the ruins of Sardis, with its huge Temple of Artemis and a restored synagogue and gymnasium. The lake nearby attracts birds, and a picnic on top of the mound at sunset gives a wide view across the plain.