A Strange Athens Imitation

I think that is a prudent way to go. There's just so much that is not known about these fascinating coins, which helps make them so appealing to me.

You have an absolutely wonderful and probably very rare coin.

 

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Your coin is obviously an imitation : the celator reproduced the types while carving the dies, and the result is a mirror-view on obverse and reverse. The style looks Qatabanian (and there are Qataban owls without letters on Athena's cheek). The weight is close to the Attic standard. I would say : ancient imitation of Qataban coinage. Probably by some South Arabian tribe...

 

First, I'd like to say I appreciate the insight for you @GinoLR and @robinjojo. I've learned a lot about imitation owls from this discussion.

In fact, I bit the bullet this morning and picked up two more imitations at the latest CNG auction.

• One from Gaza. It's a bit off center and the distinctive 'm' is mostly worn off, but I felt I would have paid a lot more for such a coin. This one will be a key piece in my "Alexander III" story, since Alexander was wounded in the ~2 month siege of Gaza, who was led by Batis.
• The second was an impulse buy from Egypt. Dated to the end of the 5th to the mid 4th century. I plan to attribute this to Nektanebo II. Granted, it's impossible to know if he actually minted it (the odds are before him), but at the minimum he minted coins that looked the same. Given that I can't afford his gold coins and the bronze issues have been show definitely to have nothing to do with him, I was glad to pick it up. Nektanebo II, of course, is famous for not being Alexander's father. Nevertheless, he assumed that role in the Alexander Romance and millions likely grew up believing the fallacy.

In terms of this coin, I took a look at the issues from Qataban and I'm having difficulty seeing it. As you know, most of those coins have a 'trident' that this one lacks. The style on both sides is also quite different.

In fact, when I went through tons of imitations on acsearch, I realized why Savoca assigned it to Edom. The reverse, other than being reversed, is almost exactly the same. Lihyan would be next in similarity.

The obverse is the real head-scratcher. It matches nothing. For that reason, I agree with you that this was likely minted by some tribe. I doubt it was under authority from a king. What is more intriguing to me is that the reverse is a near copy while the obverse is something new. Perhaps there were separate die makers (which was common)? Then why did both of them reverse their designs?

Based on the similarities, it seems like this tribe may have been from Edom or not far from it. That being said, I still don't believe an Edom attribution is correct.

I'm still tempted to keep the attribution of Philistia, since that's a generic catch all. I could also widen it to "Philistia or Arabia" to be more certain. If I really wanted to be sure, I could just say "somewhere with sand."

 

I'm looking forward to seeing the two additional acquisitions.

I also went through acsearch yesterday trying locate a drachm similar to yours. There were over 2,000 listings and I made it up to around 1,000 before the list stopped refreshing. I don't know if the problem was with my antique PC or due to the fact that I am not a subscriber for their services. At any rate I didn't see anything that stood out.

I can see why GinoLR thinks your drachm might be from Qataban, based primarily on the obverse style, but the reverse doesn't appear to fit stylistically.

I think you have a very rare to extremely rare coin and perhaps more information about it will come to light that will give it a more specific geographic origin.

These coins are challenging and they get the old brain working much more than, say, a standardized Athenian owl. There's also a very exotic nature about these imitations, especially those with definite eastern stylistic influences, countermarks and scripts.

 

Interesting, but I don't see what you mean... Could you please illustrate this with examples? Which "Edomite", which Lihyan coin looks like yours? For me, the Edomite coinage is mostly dome-shaped coins (because dies have been recut and repolished several times). And the Lihyanite coins do not at all have this style... (or there is no reason for a Lihyan attribution).

I think your coin looks more like some of the imitative owls from the "1973 Iraq Hoard" published by Van Alfen ( https://www.academia.edu/788121/_Th...erican_Journal_of_Numismatics_12_2000_pp_9_58 ):



This is what he wrote about them :


The hoard was buried in 323/2 BC. Because some of these imitations are die-linked, Van Alfen supposes they did not circulate a long time and were likely minted not far from Babylon. But in which direction? North Arabia, North or South Mesopotamia?

 

Here is one example from Idumaea (NOT MY COIN). The large eyes, angle of the owl, and "fluffiness" of the head are all consistent. The moon and leaves are also similar.


Here's an example from Lihyan (ALSO NOT MY COIN):

One could argue there are even stronger resemblances in the owl, with perhaps my coin being between them. It's a bit less abstract than the Lihyan example, but more so than the Edomite.

Here's one from Qataban (ALSO NOT MY COIN):

From what I see, this is too far off. The owl "angle" is similar to the Athens original and the eyes aren't enlarged. My coin is also missing the distinctive pitchfork and has no marking on the cheek.

This is an interesting find. I do agree the obverse on my coin has some similarities to these, but the defining characteristic, for which I have yet to find another example, is that the angle of the crown/headgear is nearly perpendicular to the nose on mine, while in nearly all other obverses it's at an angle similar to the Athens original. Of course, we don't know where these coins came from either...

It's very possible that the coin comes from Arabia, though from the similarities I see, northern Arabia seems more likely than southern. Still, besides poring through acsearch results, I read several papers and have yet to find anything remotely similar.

My current effort is trying to find a culture that created similar artwork. Maybe that will give a clue.