One of my favorite parts of collecting provincial coins is that almost every single lot I buy I find a city that I never heard of existing. One of my Roma lot wins, is this interesting Septimius Severus coin from Parlais, Pisidia, whose full name was Julia Augusta Parlais. Wikipedia pulls up very little information, and I can't even find any evidence of archaeology of Parlais. Wikipedia mentions two possible locations of ancient Parlais: 1. Barla, in the Ottoman vilayet of Koniah 2. the ruins known as Uzumla Monastir However, I can't find anything at all about either of these locations, not even any points on a map, and other sources says the location of Parlais is entirely unknown. Huh. Septimius Severus AE21 unit-multiple(?) IMP CAES L SEP SEVER P. Laureate, cuirassed bust left. IVL AVG COL PARLAIS. Men in Phrygian cap standing right, foot on bucranium, holding pine cone and scepter This coin is in rather good shape, has an unusual left-facing bust, is chock-full of symbolism, and features the god Men, an anatolian lunar god whom I had never in my life heard of before. Men has this interesting thing around his neck, which is apparently a crescent moon and is seen better in this stone bust of the god: In my coin, Men appears to be wearing a Phrygian cap, which you can also see in a rather syncretic utilization of Roman and Eastern religious traditions. There are a variety of busts of Phrygian Men wearing the eponymous cap. Interestingly, this crescent moon shape is also a common way to distinguish dupondius and antoninianus coins of female empresses - despite Men being a male god. In the Roman tradition, women were apparently associated with the moon in, while the men were associated with the sun, wearing radiate (solar) crowns to distinguish their double-denomination coins. It is not unusual for these ancient deities to have traits of both genders, however: Apollo is often seen as a rather gender-fluid looking individual, and Hermaphrodite was, by definition, half-and-half. It's obscured in my coin, but Men has his foot on a bucranium. The foot-on-object trope is very common, and can feature Apollo, Hermes, or any number of other gods with foot on something. Bucrania are basically sacrificial bovine skulls displayed in temples, and are about as old as time: some of the earliest bucrania are from the Neolithic period: Carved bucrania became very popular in Classical times, and were often carved into architectural decorations, such as this example from the Temple of Vespasian and Titus in Rome: Men is also holding a pinecone, another very, very old imagery dating back to Egyptian times, when it was associated with the pineal gland. There is a super famous and gigantic bronze pinecone, the Fontana della Pigna in Vatican city, which is possibly the largest classical bronze statue in existence. It is adjoined by two glorious bronze peacocks of the Hadrianic era. In my neck of the woods, there is another Fontana della Pigna located in Fashion Island in Newport Beach, California, of decidedly less grandiose scale. For some reason, there's tons of pinecones in this shopping mall; every trash can has a small bronze one on top. Please show your coins of Parlais, or other random places you've never heard of before.
Entertaining write-up, as always, @hotwheelsearl! Cool coin! I have only one coin of the city, also with Mên on the reverse. I'm convinced its coins and the coins of Antioch in Pisidia were struck by the same mint. You might enjoy reading these two articles here and here about this theory. Julia Domna, AD 193-217. Roman provincial Æ 21.3 mm, 5.15 g, 7 h. Pisidia, Parlais, AD 193-196? Obv: IVLIA-DOMNA, bare-headed and draped bust, right. Rev: IVL AVG C-OL PARLAIS, Mên standing r., wearing Phrygian cap, left foot on bucranium, holding spear and pinecone; behind his shoulders, crescent. Refs: BMC 21.11, 3; SNG von Aulock 5137 (same obv. die).
Nice new provincial and fun write up! I really enjoy provincials of this family, especially Julia Domna. A woman who's beauty was only eclipsed by her tragic second half of her life after Shepty died. Hey hey, look at us three... it's raining Mên: And the sons:
