| Author |
 Replies: 9 / Views: 1,637 |
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
5155 Posts |
Persia, Lycia (Lycea, Lykia, Patara), c. BC 450? Autonomous Lycia Silver Stater 9.16g ?/Lion Head This obscure location in Ancient southwest Turkey, had a very interesting history spanning centuries. Deep in the shifting sands lies on of the first democratic confederations and one of the well known accepted models in which the government of the United States of America was built. It was mentioned several times in the Federalist Papers both by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. The city of Lycia was the site of the governing body of the Lycian League, a 23 member confederation of city states. Recent excavations of the city have unearthed a Bouleuterion or "Parliment" building. It is written that each of the 23 members sent representatives to the Bouleuterion of Lycia the number depending on the size of the city state. Well in Lycia a wealthy somebody dropped this..... Interesting historical and somewhat complicated events surround Lycia during the accepted minting date of this coin. The obscurity of the Luwein language in which Lycia wrote and spoke further complicates the issue of attribution, as only limited corpus of inscriptions exist. 450 BC, when the Persians where defeated by the Greeks, Lycia became Autonomous and this would have been their stater. What pushes me to post this is the obverse animals are often poorly or inaccuratly described..my coin does not help the matter and is often left at Uncertain Dynast with Pegasus or a horse or a Pig or my guess a flying pig. So if the coin community wants to comment or share a source, please, by all means. Nate  Edited by Ancientnoob
08/03/2012 10:01 pm
|
|
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
4253 Posts |
Interesting, but I can add nothing. I know virtually nothing about these coins. It is beautiful though in it's own way, don't you think?
|
|
Moderator
 United States
23731 Posts |
Interesting coin and historical background about the area.
|
|
Bedrock of the Community
United States
10045 Posts |
 Interesting coin--the lion is pretty well defined too!  I keep looking at Lycian coins, but so far haven't found the right one. |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1315 Posts |
I think your coin resembles this one, Pegasus with a T on the hip. From the looks of the blob over the top of the incuse square your coin perhaps has suffered some heat damage, more on the Pegasus side. I found only two examples of the Pegasus T type and neither showed any type of inscriptions as yours does, and as you stated no clear attribution. Your coin clearly shows a star, a monogram, and maybe a letter T right of the lion. The 'roaring lion with star above' is a commonly used image from Kyzikos,Mysia. If you could figure out the monogram on your coin perhaps you could determine something more definite about these types.   |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
3229 Posts |
Awesome coin! I have had my eye out for one of these. Great history!
|
|
Pillar of the Community
 United States
5155 Posts |
I found some coins similar on asiaminorcoins.com. That site has some crazy nice coins.
@ Doucet - is that coin from your collection? If not do you know the source of pic. I would love to read any accompanimg texts.
Thanks guys for the shared interest in my coin.
Nate
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1316 Posts |
Ancientnoob, Very cool coin...  ... I have been wanting to get a coin with Lion on it for some time and a lot of good info too! nice job.....  |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1315 Posts |
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
5155 Posts |
Wow- $500 bucks.! On that first source. I had no idea it was worth miney like that holy cow / pegasus!
Thanks doucet.
|
| |
Replies: 9 / Views: 1,637 |
|
Posted 08/03/2012 11:07 pm
