Featured Lycian Dynasts

It strikes me w have been seeing a larger than usual number of coins of the Lycian Dynasts lately. Two weeks ago, I had none but two coin shows and the Robinson auction changed that to three. All three have the typical triskles reverse. The first two show a lion scalp from above.

From the Richmond show was a tiny 9mm, 0.27g coin shown here before which I believe may be a 1/32 stater but have absolutely no understanding of the various weight standards at play here. The seller called it a hemiobol. It can be identified to Dynast Mithrapata c.400 BC by the first three Lycian letters of his name on the reverse. It retains the 'find' patina but would be dangerous to clean to match the other two below.


From Baltimore is a 17mm 2.72g 1/3 stater or tetrobol of the same types but bearing the Lycian letters of Dynast Perikle (380-360 BC). Many of these coins are struck off center on very ragged flans. This reverse is 'normal' but the obverse is comparatively
clear. The same dealer had one with a well centered reverse and similarly off obverse. Finding these in good metal with perfect centering on both sides may take more shopping.


From the Robinson sale is a full stater 21x16mm, 9.88g (thick!) with Pegasos right and the triskles. In place of the dynast name on the reverse, this coin has a monogram I can not decipher on each side. I found similar coins identified to 'uncertain' dated 500-470 BC which matches the seller's description. This one will take more work.


Post you coins of the Lycian Dynasts.

 

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My motorboat propeller:


LYCIA Dynast Perikles 380-360 BCE AR 1/3 Stater 20x14mm 2.8g Facing lion's scalp Triskeles BMC 157

 

No Lycian coins here but I’ve been seeing many on the market too. Your tetrobol has an unusually nice lion scalp. So many have really weak or off-centered obverses. I love the stater too.

 

I have no idea how big the current hoard is, but CNG has sold about 4,000 of them so far in bulk lots (and not counting the single high grade examples). Who knows how many more could be coming...

If anyone ever wanted them before, now is the time.

 

Yeah, I have thought about buying a group, as I am a firm believer of buying into hoards. Problem is, the type has never really interested me and is not in any areas I collect really. I just haven't pulled the trigger. The prices for them seem to be holding firm, so I am guessing some dealer are putting away stock for the next 20 years. Smart of them really.

 

This happens over and over. It is necessary to get what you want when you can because it is not safe assume that there will be available coins next year or in a decade when your interest rotates around to whatever it is that is currently available. Yes, CNG has sold about 4000 of them including some nicer than mine and some really bad ones. I do not suggest we all rush out and buy a fifty year supply as medoraman might prefer but it is a good time to get that one for your general collection. Will they be cheaper later? Will someone who has bought vast numbers of them publish a book that makes them popular and understandable? We do not know. I enjoy my three. I may get others if the price is right and they are a good fit to my interests at the time. I will not be paying 10 times the current price to have one just a bit better than the ones I have or buying a bulk lot of also-ran grade specimens. Filling each of our particular styles of collecting is why those ancient Lycian Dynasts (hereditary rulers who were not really big enough deals to be full fledged kings but served to keep those regions of SW Asia Minor in line for centuries) made so many of the things. Ancient coins as a whole are not rare. I suspect the varieties we have either singly or by the thousands make up a large percentage of what once existed. Are these something you and I should include in our collections? Think about it.

 

I want to express my large appreciation for your small fraction, that little coin is fantastic! I don't recall seeing one in my searching around for lilliputian coinage, I take it they are rather more uncommon than the 1/3 staters?

And I too have noticed the glut, but more-so from the usual suspects on eBay who buy bulk lots of mediocre stock from the auction houses to resell individually.

 

Guilty of buying and selling, although I have been sitting on most of mine until the market improves. I did select one for my collection, because I love ancient coins with inscriptions not in Greek or Latin


Dynast Perikles, 380-360 BC
1/3 stater
Head of Helios control mark

 

Here's an informative page for collectors interested in Lycian - it was an Anatolian language, but the alphabet borrowed heavily from Doric Greek.

 

I was at a large coin show a few months ago. One dealer had a pile of these $35, your choice, By the time I got to the pile it had been picked through for hours but still I got some nice ones.

 

I liked the Apollo control mark ( ? ) on this one, but I need to take a better photo


DYNASTS OF LYCIA. Perikles, circa 380-360 BC. Third stater (Silver, 16 mm, 3.04 g, 11 h), Antiphellos. Lion's scalp facing. Rev. Periklein Lycian. Triskeles to left; in upper left field, draped bust of Apollo facing; empty central circle. Müseler VIII, 44 var. SNG Keckman II, 495. Traité II 494..

 

I have a few. I'm supposed to be offloading my lower end duplicates. Back when I said that, I had two with Pegasus...

Can anyone tell what's special about this group?




- Michael

 

Here is my triobol, struck under Perikles, 380-360 BC.

Does anyone know the meaning of the triskeles? Ancient fidget spinner? Also, why is it sometimes called a triskelion?

 

Sharp triobol!

No one knows the meaning of the triskeles. It is known from the bronze age.

Both words are from the ancient Greek.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/triskele
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/triskelion

In numismatics, 'triskeles' is singular. For example, John Melville Jones (A Dictionary of Ancient Greek Coins) defines it as “... a device formed or based upon three legs joined at the hip...”. [emphasis mine].

Wikipedia and Wiktionary considers the word to be 'triskele'. 'triskeles' is the plural of 'triskele'. This isn't merely a Wikipedia error, the Oxford English Dictionary considers the word to be 'triskele', although it undermines itself because of one its reference citations uses 'triskeles' in a singular context.

Google Books knew of 846 mentions of 'triskele' and 780 mentions of 'triskeles' when I checked a few years ago. Some of the triskeles mentions are from numismatic fields, which use the word as a singular, and others are clearly using it as a plural (for example, discussing “scrolls and triskeles”.

The earliest English reference in Google Books to 'triskele' is 1868, The runic hall in the Danish old-northern museum by George Stephens. The earliest singular reference to 'triskeles' is an article on acquisitions of the British Museum in The Classical Review from 1889.

I discussed this topic in a thread on FORUM's Classical Numismatics Discussion Board where it came out that the Greek word Tri-skelês is an adjective and thus neither singular nor plural. A similar Greek word that made it into English as an adjective is 'isosceles' used to describe triangles.

I believe there are enough authorities using 'triskeles' as a singular to get it into the OED and other dictionaries as a variant spelling of 'triskele'. Certainly Barclay Head uses it as singular, and the OED cites him as an authority under 'triskeles' (for the similar word 'triskelion'). I think we have a case of the same Greek word being borrowed into English twice — with different spellings!

 

Are they overstruck on something?

 

All obverses from the same die.

 

Hello I recently acquired a few Lions Scalp/Triskeles coins at auction. They seem to be in pretty good condition. I am wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction in figuring out what the variants in the two coins means? I thought they were the same when I bid on them, however, when they arrived I noticed different symbols around the triskeles and a different lions scalp between the two.

 

The Lycian alphabet is explained at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycian_alphabet

Their letter for “th”, equivalent to the Greek θ, looks like )(

One of your coins has the first three letters of Mithrapata’s name. Each letter is separated. You can think of the coin as reading “M-E-Th” or “Meth”.

M - E - )(

The other coin has something I can’t quite make it, it looks like

ME)( - PΠP - TP

The Lycian letter for “a” looks like a sharp P. You can think of this coin as reading “Meth - apa - ta” or “Mithapata”. I think. The picture is a bit small for me.

CoinTalk doesn't accept Lycian letters, but you should be able to cut and paste the letters from Wikipedia.

 

I had no idea the hoard of coins of the "Lycian dynasts" might number more than 4000, but I did see many sold over time, most with weak obverses or significant off-centering. After a few months I saw one that I liked and I was underbidder on it. Then a while later I got this one (seller's photo):


Dynast of Lycia, Mithrapata, c. 380 BC 15-13 mm. 1.14 grams.

Sear Greek 5228.