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Drachm - Orodes III - Kingdom of Elymais Arsacid Dynasty
| Issuer | Elymais |
|---|---|
| Year | 100-200 |
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| Currency | Drachm (247 BC-224 AD) |
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| Obverse description | Debased bust of Orodes III facing left, depicted with a long beard and wearing a tiara ornamented with an anchor motif, characteristic of the late Elymaic Arsacid dynastic style. To the right of the effigy, a crescent enclosing a pellet is positioned above an anchor with a single crossbar, serving as dynastic control marks. The portrait, rendered in the highly schematized and degenerate manner typical of late Elymaic coinage, shows pronounced facial features and flowing beard. The flan is irregular and the strike characteristic of hammered billon issues of this period. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse field is covered entirely by a pattern of parallel V-shaped or chevron marks, arranged in rows across the die surface, a highly degenerate design characteristic of the latest phase of Elymaic coinage under Orodes III. This abstract reverse composition, devoid of any legible inscription or figurative imagery, represents the extreme stylistic degradation of the dynastic coinage during the late 2nd to early 3rd century AD. The struck surface is flat and irregular, consistent with the debased billon fabric of this series. |
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| Additional information |
Orodes III ruled Elymais — the semi-independent kingdom occupying roughly modern Khuzestan in southwestern Iran — during a period when the region had long since lost any meaningful political autonomy from Parthia. The Arsacid dynasts of Elymais issued coinage largely as a local assertion of identity rather than from any independent monetary necessity. By this period the coinage had degraded substantially from earlier silver issues, with billon replacing purer metal as the kingdom's resources and ambitions contracted in parallel.
The Haaff reference corpus remains the definitive cataloguing work for Elymaean issues, and the 16.4 series reflects the typological clustering around Orodes III's output specifically.