Defining Lydia
The endonym Śfard (the name the Lydians called themselves) survives in bilingual and trilingual stone-carved notices of the Achaemenid Empire: the satrapy of Sparda (Old Persian), Aramaic Saparda, Babylonian Sapardu, Elamitic Išbarda. These in the Greek tradition are associated with Sardis, the capital city of Gyges, constructed in the 7th century BC.
The cultural ancestors appear to have been associated with or part of the Luwian political entity of Arzawa; yet Lydian is not part of the Luwian subgroup (as is Carian and Lycian).
An Etruscan and Lydian connection has been a long-standing subject of conjecture. The Greek historian Herodotus stated that the Etruscans came from Lydia, repeated in Virgil's epic poem the Aeneid, and Etruscan-like language was found on the Lemnos stele. However, recent decipherment of Lydian and its classification as an Anatolian language mean that Etruscan and Lydian were possibly not even in the same language family. Nevertheless, a recent genetic study of likely Etruscan descendants in Tuscany found strong similarities with individuals in western Anatolia.
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