This time I may have chosen an area thats a bit too complicated for me. Although I did as much research as I could it seems that this area either has too little info. on it or the info. is not too accurate. Elymais, Orodes I 100-150 AD. AE15 Drachm 3.5 grams O: Bust left with long beard wearing diademed tiara ornamented with anchor. To right, star within crescent above anchor with one bar. R: Bust of Artemis right wearing kalanthos. Greek legend around. Reference: Sear 5892 I think I got that right, but if anybody has better info. feel free to correct me or add it in.
25? Are they silver? Always interested in ancient coins but don't know enough to actually start purchasing. All the info I have read from the people that are in the know is actually fascinating and informing to me.!!
The back of Frank Robinson's current list still offers fixed price Elymais from $4 to $12 he calls 'picked from a hoard'. I strongly suspect the hoard was huge since we are seeing a lot of these. I bought one of his 10 for $65 lots a couple sales ago but never accessioned them. Lazy am I. I will probably regret not buying some of the better ones while they are available but I currently have too many interests that outrank them.
that's a cool one IR, i'm not real familiar with the type...but i've seen several around lately, even took a couple shots at one. most of the ones i see have a pattern of dots on the back, i haven't seen one with a reverse bust like that...looks alexandrian to me (maybe artemis is reminding me of serapis with her head gear)>
Thanks, I looked through a bunch of them online but chose this one. Price was a bit higher than the rest but the condition was better. I'm definitely going to be picking up more, probably the ones with the dots and slashes on the reverse. But this one looked different like you said, and thats part of the reason why I picked it.
I would guess Orodes III, Second Century AD van't Haaff page 131, type 16.1 The reverse legend is odd in that the name YPWDHC reads correctly with the bottoms of the letters near the bust but BACI^EYK reads with the tops near Artemis so turning the coin 1/4 turn to the right so Artemis looks down makes both legends right side up. van't Haaff goes on to identify subtypes but I'm not entirely clear on either his or the OP photo. Page 20 of his book (Catalog of Elymaean Coinage, CNG, 2007) lists all the kings by type and gives the ID of six earlier works which vary on which Orodes number issued this type and in what part of the 2nd century it belongs. Sear does give this as Orodes I. This book has a lot of pictures and a lot of information but a lot of it can be summed up with a giant 'don't know'. A problem I'm seeing is I'm not sure how such an obscure series with so few names will be straightened out if it was not by such a nice book as this one. We might just need to accept the Type 16 ID and let it go at that. He devotes several pages to discussing some of the various arguments on chronology. I really should read those pages but the discussion may require me to be in a more scholarly mood than I have been recently. Who else owns the book? Did you read and understand it?
I was getting confused with several sites attributing the coin. The label from the seller reads Orodes III Van't Haaff 16.1 but the online resources stated Orodes II and another one said Orodes I with a Sear number of 5892. I'm going to look for that book this weekend. Hopefully it won't cost too much.
I've got a handful of Elymais coins, but when I think of them it's mainly just two words that spring to mind - "cute" and "cheap". Guess I don't have much of a scholarly bent. Like the coin though!
Seeing some of my photos on that site reminded me I have a page of Elymais but it is a fine example of why you can't believe everything you read online or in books since I show the Artemis type as Orodes I. That page was done 10 years before van't Haaff came out and assigned it to Orodes III. I need to update.
Yes I did, that's where I got Orodes I from. So is my id correct or wrong? I would like to know before I make the label. Thanks
I don't know. That is the point. I don't think anyone knows but the latest books on the subject seem to be going with III. To make it worse, I don't think they are completely certain of just how many kings named Orodes there were but if the new information suggests that what we used to think was one reign was actually two with the same name we have to decide whether to call the earlier one of the new discovery 'one' and push everyone else up a number. I have not read all the arguments on the matter yet and I would not bet we have heard the last revision on all this. In a few years someone else will revise, restudy or decide that all the past scholars were confused and put it out again 'their way'. These backwater kingdoms millennia ago leave plenty of room for revisions. Your coin reads Orodes so that may be safe. The numeral is a convention of modern historians. Did anyone ever wonder why sometimes we tack on a number and sometimes we don't? Why is Titus not Vespasian II? Why is Gordian III not Marcus Pius? If Julian who followed Constantius II is number II, who is number I - 'Didius' or 'of Pannonia'. History is only as clear as historians choose to make it minus the confusion of new discoveries.
The recent group I bought was 10 assorted of which I got 8 types. These photos show the surface conditions which make me wonder if the OP coin was from the same group and just cleaned differently or if it was from a different group. The first here is vH16.1 like the OP coin. I have a great deal of trouble reading the letters but under Artemis is the very strange B of BACI^EYK with the rest of the word following upward with imagination. Only the YPW of Orodes shows. I think this is pretty standard for F-VF examples of these coins. Those who want nice detail may want to pay more for EF's. I really should sit down and run them through the catalog but I always seem to find something better to do.
At some point someone decided on something and others just followed. I always wondered about Julian II, but I am guessing he follows Didius Julianus (who is referred to in Historia Augusta as Iulianus) rather than Julian of Pannonia, who is generally classified a usurper rather than an emperor. I do note however that Wildwinds has the Pannonian one as Julian I.
