For Secret Saturnalia I was given this wonderful large bronze of Philip I with an amazing architectural reverse. I always like to try to imagine what these places would look like in real life, so I set about using my "masterful" Microsoft Word photo-editing skills to try to make a fun pastiche to reconstruct this complex. When we zoom in, we see a few things that I think are neat. I dramatically upped the contrast to make it more clear. The whole complex is shown in a sort of tilted birds-eye view which makes it look rather like a mountain, but its just the odd angle its depicted at. A view of the area in front demonstrates that this is a colonnaded courtyard, filled with trees in the middle and with a monumental gateway entrance at the front. Going to the temple proper, we see a tetrastyle temple with a uniquely Eastern arched pediment. It's impossible to know for sure what deity is worshipped here, but if we get real close on the cult statue we can tell, at a minimum, it's a standing, facing figure. It would probably be around at least 20 feet tall, I would imagine, for it to fill up the entire portal. However, it's more likely that the statue was even taller, and would not have been fully visible from the outside. The columns are neat. It's hard to tell exactly the order, but I would suspect that they are actually Corinthian Solomonic columns. At first I thought they had the spiral fluting that we see in some other Eastern coins, such as this one of Caracalla: Now it could be just the small size forced the celator to abbreviate the fluting into a few strokes, but I think its more fun (and fanciful!) to imagine Solomonic columns here. So putting all that together, I threw together a quick collage that maybe kinda gives an impression of what this place might have looked like. For lack of a better idea, I used a kouros as the cult statue, as it's generically frontal enough that it sort of has the same idea as the statue represented on the coin. I used a peristyle court for the surroundings, and the Temple of Hadrian at Ephesus as the temple proper. I then found these neat wooden Solomonic columns that I color corrected to look a bit more marble like.
I've got a similar one which I have shared before...absolutely love the coin! Your zooming in and looking at the detail is great. This coin is important because of its artistic creativity (perspective view) and also because just a few years after this coin was struck the city of Zeugma was destroyed by the Persians. It was the home base of Legion IV Parthica, evidenced by the Capricorn symbol in the exergue. COMMAGENE, Zeugma. Philip I the Arab or Philip II. 247-249 AD. Æ31, 19.2g; 6h Obv.: AYTOK K M IOYΛI ФIΛIΠΠOC CЄB; Laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right. Rev.: ZЄYGM-ATЄΩN; Peribolos containing grove of trees, seen in perspective; tetrastyle temple in distance, draped figure within (Zeus?); in exergue, capricorn to right. Reference: Butcher 31c; BMC 35.
You know, your coin has the statue almost look seated instead of standing. I suppose that would make more sense based on the pose.
Not sure if he is seated or standing. Good observation. I guess most of the time Zeus was seated in statues. Thinking of the temple of Zeus at Olympia.
Bronze coin (AE 30) minted at Commagene, Zeugma during the reign of PHILIP I between 244-249 A.D. Obv. AYTOK.K.M.IOYAI.0IAINNO.C.CEB, laureate, draped bust r. from behind. Rev. ZEY1M-ATEZEY1M-ATuN, Tetrastyle temple with peribolos enclosing the sacred grove of trees, statue of seated Zeus within temple, Capricorn left in ex; GIC #3954. BMC #29
