Lapethos (modern Lapithos, on Cyprus's northern coast) was one of the island's Phoenician-founded city-kingdoms, and its early coinage reflects the hybrid Phoenician-Greek monetary culture that defined archaic Cyprus. The siglos weight standard in use here derived from the Persian system then dominating the eastern Mediterranean, adopted by Cypriot mints as the island sat firmly within the Achaemenid sphere of influence following Cambyses II's conquest of Egypt in 525 BC and the subsequent tightening of Persian control over Cyprus.
GCV 3602 is a notably scarce type. Lapethos struck far less coinage than its larger neighbors Salamis or Paphos.
Lapethos (modern Lapithos, on Cyprus's northern coast) was one of the island's Phoenician-founded city-kingdoms, and its early coinage reflects the hybrid Phoenician-Greek monetary culture that defined archaic Cyprus. The siglos weight standard in use here derived from the Persian system then dominating the eastern Mediterranean, adopted by Cypriot mints as the island sat firmly within the Achaemenid sphere of influence following Cambyses II's conquest of Egypt in 525 BC and the subsequent tightening of Persian control over Cyprus.
GCV 3602 is a notably scarce type. Lapethos struck far less coinage than its larger neighbors Salamis or Paphos.