So I have been doing some research lately on one of my favorite coin series, the AR Staters of Sikyon, trying to learn more about them and also how best to date them. My research keeps bringing me back to the work of the late Jennifer Warren (who the numismatic community unfortunately lost in 2016 ). So far I have only been able to find her short paper entitled: Financing the Peloponnesian War: the Peloponnesian perspective. She describes the ability to date the series based on both the style of the obverse (chimaira) and the local ethnic ΣE changing (for the most part) to the ionic ΣΙ during the 4th century BC. Here we see a Stater circa 430 - 400 BC (images curtesy of wikimedia commons) Note that the goats near leg is raised into the air (an earlier style indicator) and that the ethnic is spelled with an E. Next we have a Stater circa 360 - 330 BC. Note the use of the I in the ethnic. Finally we have this odd duck circa 380 BC I'd like to discuss a couple of items with this one. Note that we are seeing the ethnic spelled with a "E" but this coin is dated post 400 BC (unusual). It seems on occasion the celator reverted to the local spelling of the ethnic in a somewhat sparatic manner. However you will never see the "I" crop up on earlier coins that date to the Peloponnesian War. Two stylistic indicators, that I am aware of, give this away as a post Peloponnesian War coin. First: the wreath on the upper right is a later addition to the series. Second: the near leg of the goat "describes a circle" as Jennifer Warren puts it. I'm not 100% clear on this as an ironclad indicator and the paper I have doesn't elaborate. (Thoughts?) This is as far as I've been able to get with this series. I would like to get my hands on Mrs. Warrens book: The Silver Coins of Sikyon in Leiden: Analyses and Some Comments on the Coinage. If any of you know where I can find this book or have anything to add or just to post your own Stater please feel welcome. Would also welcome any informative links or other book suggestions I have also found in my research that @dougsmit seems to have gone down this road as well a few years ago. Any input you have Doug would be very much appreciated as always!
I mean, I would take her out for a date, but she seems like she might be a bit... I dunno... cold and hard? Really cool looking coins, and interesting info about them. If you are a member of the ANS, you may be able to borrow their copy: http://donum.numismatics.org/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=113987 You could also request it from interlibrary loan at your local library, there appears to be a few libraries which own a copy.
Interesting. This is information I hadn't even considered, so I need to think on it and do some research of my own. I love this series as well. Very distinctive to say the least. This is mine which I was able to pry from Doug's hands some time back. Note it displays the ethnic ΣΙ. SIKYONIA SIKYON AR Hemidrachm OBVERSE: Chimaera standing left, with heads of snake, lion & goat, raising forepaw, ΣΙ below REVERSE: Dove flying left Struck at Skyon, Fourth Century BC 2.6g, 17mm SNGCop 57, BMC 111 Ex Doug Smith
I do not have pour Denyse: Divertissements Numismatiques which is where Warren's paper appears. It will be very hard to find. The ANS will likely photocopy it for you for 25 cents a page. I have the LHS catalog of the BCD collection of Peloponnesos. Your coin's obverse greatly resembles and may be a die match for BCD 219. That specimen has an I on the reverse in front of the dove. Alan Walker writes "The terminal groups of the wreath issue, those with N, I, or A on their reverses, were struck in considerable numbers ... and ought to be connected with Alexander's appeal for mercenaries from the Peloponnese in 334 [BC]; the fact that these are the only Sicyonian staters that often appear in superb condition ... may well indicate that considerable numbers of them were paid out to soldiers who then buried them for safekeeping but never returned to recover them" !!!
Jennifer Warren was THE specialist of Sikyon. Shes has written a lot of articles over the coinage of this city. I recommend you this article: Sikyon: a Case-Study in the Adoption of Coinage by a Polis in the Fifth Century BC (published in the Numismatic Chronicle of 2009). It is possible to read it freely on jstor (but you have first to register): http://www.jstor.org/stable/42678602
