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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;John Anthony, post: 2261354, member: 42773&quot;]This coin came to me attributed to Termessos Major, but I knew it was incorrect. My initial searches turned up nothing, so I sought help at FORVM. When a week went by with no responses, I realized I might be in a bit of trouble.</p><p><br /></p><p>However, tonight I finally came across ONE example of its type, Jacquier 139 Lot 148, describing the inscription as ΔIOΣ ΛAPAΣIOY, SNG Cop 666...</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]448938[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Curtis Clay was kind enough to provide me with this quote, &quot;Zeus at Tralles was called Larasios from a sanctuary in the neighbouring village of Larasa&quot; (Head, Hist. Num., p. 659).</p><p><br /></p><p>I recently purchased Peter Thonemann&#039;s <i>The Meander Valley, A Historical Geography from Antiquity to Byzantium, </i>so I took it out, hoping to find some more clues about this coin, and much to my surprise, I found the EXACT description of the series and its context in the typology of Tralles.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>The earliest coinage of Tralles, Magnesia&#039;s neighbour to the east, dates to the late third or very early second century BC , at a period when Tralles still carried the Seleucid dynastic name of Seleucea (rapidly abandoned by the Trallians after the end of Seleucid rule in Asia Minor in 190 BC ). A small issue of bronze coinage, probably dating to the final years of Seleucid rule ( c . 200–190 BC ), depicts a right-facing laureate bust of Zeus on the obverse, and on the reverse, a left-facing zebu at the centre of a maeander circle. <b>The same types of laureate Zeus and zebu in a maeander circle are found on another bronze issue of Seleucea-Tralles, with no city-ethnic and minted solely in the name of the city&#039;s major deity Zeus Larasius.</b> It is very striking how similar the Seleucean reverse type is to the standard Magnesian reverse type at this period, which depicts a zebu butting to the left, also enclosed in a maeander circle; to all appearances the Trallians based their earliest bronze types on the coinage of their western neighbour.</i> (pp.65-66)</p><p><br /></p><p>How often do you buy a random book, then a random coin, then find the exact description of the coin in the book? I should go buy a lottery ticket. At any rate, here is my example...</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]448941[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><b> <font size="4">Lydia, Tralles </font></b></p><p><font size="4">AE16, 3.6g, 1h; late 2nd- to 1st-centuries BC.</font></p><p><font size="4">Obv.: Laureate head of Zeus right.</font></p><p><font size="4">Rev.: ΔIOΣ ΛAPAΣIOY (Zeus Larasius); Zebu standing left, head turned facing.</font></p><p><font size="4">Reference: SNG Cop 666, extremely rare.</font>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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