I picked this up at the Philly ANA Show today from a dealer who had several hordes of various ancient and medieval coins. This one has me stumped. From its Eastern style, similar to Parthian, but earlier and in bronze, I am thinking maybe Elymais. In size it is about the same as a US half dollar. Any ideas on time and place? There is not much to read from the reverse and no inscription on the obverse.
Just got home to access to my CPU - Here is one I recently bought, but I myself haven't yet had the opportunity to attempt identification of the ruler. our own @Bob L seems to know quite a bit about these: An Introduction to Collecting Coins from Elymais By Robert L3 (Bob L)
Thanks, dadams. The latest research on this series is Pieter Anne van't Haaff's Catalogue of Elymaean Coinage (CNG, 2007). Your coin, Kevin, is a van't Haaff type 10.3 (in concordance with Alram's NB1), which Pieter attributes to the generalized "Uncertain Early Arsacid Kings" of Elymais.
These things were $25 a piece. I already have had that much enjoyment out of it. By the way the weight is close to 17 grams. My Greel Seaby, circa 1991, does not list the coins of Elymais.
You got a great deal. Congrats. It's a wonderful series to collect, with many unpublished variants and plenty of mysteries to ponder. I'm trying to build up my collection of Elymaeans...it's slow going and is years away from where I want it to be, but it's a fun ride. If interested: http://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=3637
Wow, that was a very nice deal for $25! Of the more eastern kingdoms, Elymais is one I've been meaning to explore. In a recent JA auction I picked up a nice example of a very common type. Yours is much more interesting . I'd like some of the front facing coins too. @Bob L. didn't mention it but he wrote a very good synopsis of Elymais coinage and you can read it here: https://www.coincommunity.com/pdf/An-Introduction-to-Collecting-Coins-from-Elymais.pdf ELYMAIS. Phraates, early to mid 2nd Century CE Æ Drachm, 15 mm, 3.18 gm Obv.: Bust of Phraates left with star and crescent, trident behind. Rev.: Regular pattern of dashes. Ref: van't Haaff 14.2.2-1; Sear 5902 (I do not have the reference books and have not checked the attribution) JAZ private auction 137, 2 August 2018; ex Ken Dorney The shape and bumps would make this coin an excellent guitar pick
Elymais is too late for the Greek Seaby books but is covered in the Greek Imperial volume starting on page 582. While most of that book is filled with Roman Provincials, there are several later kingdoms covered at the end. You will find, however, the attributions of a few coins of any period have been modified in newer books like van't Haaff.
The reverse of these features a bust. Rarely the bust is in good style. Those are attributed to Kamnaskires V. Example: https://cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=291086 Sometimes the reverse bust is line art, usually just a blob. These are "uncertain early Arsakid kings". Here is an example with recognizable line art reverse bust: KINGS of ELYMAIS. Uncertain early Arsakid kings. Late 1st century BC-early 2nd century AD. BI Tetradrachm. Uncertain mint. 30mm, 14.84g Obv: Diademed bust left to right, star-in-crescent above anchor, small pellet to right of anchor Ref: Degraded inscription; Crude diademed bearded bust left. Ref: van’t Haaff type 10.3.1-1D. Sometimes these are struck in high relief. When I first saw the specimen below I wasn't sure what I was seeing. Bronze doesn't do this! Of course, the coins are billon. Perhaps with enough silver content the alloy flows enough to allow very high relief? BI Tetradrachm. Uncertain mint. 14.35g, 27mm The above coin are not thin and the relief is higher than the thickness of the flan:
Thanks for that information. Apparently these coins do represent a gap in Numismatic studies but the site you referenced is pretty darn good. At the Philly show, where the dealer had set out a pile of maybe a hundred of these, he had posted a sign attributing the coins to "Lycia, Fourth Century BC" I knew they were not that but that was all I knew for sure. I am sorry I only picked up one of these. The coins looked as thought they had just come out of the ground. Most had pretty significant accretions of a reddish but smooth substance on the surfaces, especially the reverse sides It almost looked like a kind of rust. Some of the coins actually showed a kind of splitting into flakey layers on the thick rims which again reminded me of a rust. I wonder if there is any ferrous metal in the alloy? I'll have to check this with a magnet.
What a very nice coin! To keep your uncertain early Arsacid king company, here is a coin by the latest Arsacid king known by name, Orodes V. (late 2nd to early 3rd centuries A.D, according to van't Haaff): Kingdom of Elymais, Orodes V, late 2nd–early 3rd c. AD, AE Drachm. Obv: Bearded bust of Orodes left with double diadem and tuft of hair on top of head (a hairstyle which today is better known as a "man bun"). Rev: Bust of Artemis with beaded tiara left. Ref: van't Haaff 18.1.1-2A. 13 mm, 2.6g. Ex Numismatik Lanz, Munich. I very much like these Elymaean bronze coins, and it's nice to know that there are others in this forum who collect them, too. Since the history of the kingdom of Elymais is so obscure and many of its kings are only known from their coins, these little drachms possess, at least in my eyes, an unparalleled Ozymandian charme. (Also, please note Orodes' haircut and beard - in 2018, many a hipster would get green with envy!)
Did what you see roughly look like this? Kingdom of Elymais, Kamnaskires-Orodes, early-mid 2nd c. AD, AE Drachm. Obv: Bearded bust facing, tufts on the side of the head. Pellet and crescent above anchor to the right (obscured by corrosion). Rev: Dashes. Ref: van't Haaff 12.3.1-2A2. 16mm, 3.8g, Ex Numismatik Lanz, Munich. A couple of my Elymaean AE coins show these reddish layers, and I also wonder what type of corrosion it is and what it tells us about the alloy. I bought my coins from different dealers over a period of time, and thus don't assume this to be specific to a single hoard or issue. I just checked the depicted coin with a fridge magnet and it apparently isn't magnetic, which speaks against a significant ammount of ferrous metal in the alloy. Yet, my magnet also is rather bad. Did you perhaps get a different result?
I tried the same thing this morning with a powerful magnet and had no reaction at all, but perhaps they used a crudely made bronze that had lots of other impurities in it. The metal looks likes something leftover from melting tire weights for fishing sinkers, Anyone up on their spectrometry?
