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Diobol - Uncertain Dynast
| Issuer | Lycia, Dynasts of |
|---|---|
| Year | 470 BC - 440 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Diobol (⅓) |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Full-face gorgoneion of archaic type, depicted with wide staring eyes, pronounced brow, and a broad grimacing mouth with tongue protruding downward between serpentine coils or locks flanking the chin. The head is set within a shallow incuse square, a standard reverse treatment for small Lycian silver of this period. No legend is present. The apotropaic image is rendered with confident, stylised detail typical of the mid-fifth century BCE. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Lycian dynastic coinage of this period emerged from a political structure unlike anything in the Greek world — autonomous local rulers who paid tribute to Achaemenid Persia while minting their own silver, effectively operating as semi-sovereign entities under imperial tolerance. The attribution "uncertain dynast" reflects a genuine scholarly impasse: without a readable ethnic or name inscription, and with overlapping iconographic conventions between ruling houses, positive identification remains impossible despite a century of effort cataloguing these series.
Müseler's classification system, the most current framework for this material, still leaves dozens of dies unassigned.