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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 8189629, member: 128351&quot;]What is depicted on coins when they represent Mount Argaeus?</p><p>This volcanic mountain, today Erciyes Dagi in Turkish, looks actually like this :</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1433517[/ATTACH]</p><p>(as seen from Caesarea of Cappadocia - Kayseri, Turkey)</p><p><br /></p><p>Today you can go skiing on its slopes, there are resorts like in the Alps.</p><p><br /></p><p>Mount Argaeus is pictured on ancient coins from Archelaus (36 BC - 17 AD) to Gordian III (238-244 AD). These depictions are extremely diverse, here is a small sample, sometimes the mountain can be represented under much different aspects under the same emperor.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1433521[/ATTACH]</p><p>It is something surrealistic. The oldest depictions look like [ATTACH=full]1433525[/ATTACH]. Some others, especially under Lucius Verus or an incredible medallion of Commodus, look like something by Salvador Dalí.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1433585[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Mt Argaeus is depicted as a strange mountain topped by a statue, or a star, or the Sun&#039;s quadriga, or different things, with sometimes bizarre spheres, something like an incuse ace of spades (a cave?) at mid-summit, and surrounded by dots, or peaks, or flames, or anything... What is it???</p><p><br /></p><p>Do you know a serious article or chapter in which the image of Mt Argaeus on ancient coins is analysed, discussed, explained?</p><p><br /></p><p>My own personal theory is that these peaks, at least on depictions of the Severian period, may represent hoodoos (AKA fairy chimneys) typical of the Cappadocia landscape. Of course these hoodoos are not on Mount Erciyes, you can find them in the surroundings near Ürgüp and Göreme, more than 50 km West of Caesarea. But it is just my personal hypothesis, I never read anything in that sense.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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