Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Stater
| Issuer | Tarsos |
|---|---|
| Year | 440 BC - 420 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Silver Stater (3) |
| 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 |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | A standing male deity, facing left, is depicted within a dotted square border set within a shallow incuse square, a hallmark of early Cilician silver coinage. The figure holds a trident in one hand, an attribute strongly associated with a sea or storm deity in the Syro-Phoenician tradition. A grain ear appears to the left of the figure in the field, referencing the agricultural prosperity of the Cilician plain. The incuse square technique reflects the archaic Greek die-cutting tradition adapted at Tarsos during the late fifth century BC. An Aramaic inscription, the precise lettering of which is not fully legible on all specimens, appears within the design. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Plain |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Tarsos functioned as the administrative seat of the Persian satrapy of Cilicia during this period, and its coinage — including this stater — was produced under Achaemenid oversight while retaining distinctly local Anatolian iconographic traditions. The city sat astride the Cilician Gates, the critical mountain pass through the Taurus range, making it both strategically indispensable and commercially active enough to sustain a productive mint.
The SNG Levante reference places this piece within a tightly documented group, and the Ashmolean specimen catalogued as #1831 provides a useful die-study anchor for the series.