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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Severus Alexander, post: 8140021, member: 84744&quot;]Well, [USER=83845]@Curtisimo[/USER], I seem to be obsessing about your coin and your post.&nbsp; You&#039;d better write another intriguing post soon so I can think about something else! <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>[USER=97383]@Al Kowsky[/USER] mentioned that there are actually three varieties of staters, and that does seem to be the case.&nbsp; In the reference that [USER=99456]@Sulla80[/USER] linked (thanks!) Lucian Munteanu distinguishes between the &quot;simple&quot; monograms, as on Curtisimo&#039;s coin, and the &quot;complex&quot; monograms.&nbsp; He also suggests the metal content is different between the two, with the simple monograms having lower gold content (citing Petolescu and others, I haven&#039;t tracked down these references).&nbsp; This suggests three separate issues, of course: simple monogram, complex monogram, and no monogram.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1418949[/ATTACH]</p><p>I&#039;ve added the &quot;messy&quot; (mis-struck) simple monogram in the middle as part of a suggestion for how things went: first the simple monogram was struck (using Dacian gold?), and then (years later?) the complex monogram was struck (using looted Greek gold?).&nbsp; If the engraver of the complex monogram was illiterate but did his level best to copy a messy mis-struck version of the simple monogram – messily struck coins are quite common – that would explain the bizarre appearance of the complex monogram.</p><p><br /></p><p>The no-monogram type could have been struck anywhere before, during, or after that timeline.</p><p><br /></p><p>(NB: Yes, the complex monogram above is in silver - it seems all the drachms are of this variety.&nbsp; They appear to share an obverse die with the complex monogram staters.&nbsp; In fact the whole series seems to feature a very small number of obverse dies, maybe only 3, one for each variety!&nbsp; Thanks to [USER=83845]@Curtisimo[/USER] for discussion on this point.&nbsp; Maybe he will do the work to confirm it, I am too lazy. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />)</p><p><br /></p><p>That said, it is actually possible to recover the B+P+Y from the complex monogram too:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1418951[/ATTACH]</p><p>This shows the rho in green, the upsilon in red (either upside down or, a bit wonky, sideways), while the light blue shows how a B is completed from the existing rho.</p><p><br /></p><p>Personally I think the copying of a mis-struck simple monogram is more likely than this weird mess being an intentional B+P+Y.&nbsp; I also think a Latin BR isn&#039;t very likely either, although it must be admitted it&#039;s a little easier to recover that from the complex monogram than from the simple monogram.&nbsp; (But what&#039;s with the upper parts of the red upsilon then? <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie12" alt="o_O" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />)&nbsp; Maybe that&#039;s what Head et al. were looking at when they came up with their highly idealized and inaccurate versions of the monogram, as pictured by Curtisimo <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/a-beautiful-gold-stater-of-brutus.390998/page-2#post-8128562" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/a-beautiful-gold-stater-of-brutus.390998/page-2#post-8128562">here</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course, they didn&#039;t have the additional knowledge we now have of the Buridava archaeological complex, or the First-Meris-type drachms - I&#039;ll post a bit more on Buridava/Cosota later.&nbsp; My suspicion now is that the large, wealthy settlement in the valley was known in Dacian as &quot;Cos...&quot;, while the principle fortress was known as Buridava.&nbsp; Meaning that &quot;KOΣON&quot; refers to the settlement.&nbsp; Makes a lot more sense of the grammar on the coins too![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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