Vicious Little Achaemenid King

I didn't know much about these chubby silver nuggets from the Achaemenid Empire, apart from knowing that I wanted one of them. There's just something I find appealing about the royal archer/irregular incuse punch design, even though I still can't decide if it's cool or just cartoonish. I did know that they were wonderfully ancient (late 6th century to mid 4th century BC), pleasingly chunky for their small size, and fairly inexpensive if you weren't aiming too high gradewise.

My very general criteria eventually led me to this piece that was, for me, within my modest budget and in a decent grade. I particularly liked that it had a fairly mean-looking archer-king and an incuse punch somewhat resembling a downward pointing arrowhead.



PERSIA, Achaemenid Empire
temp. Artaxerxes II to Artaxerxes III
circa 375 - 340 BC
AR Siglos
5.5g, 15.3mm max
Carradice Type IV, Group C; Sunrise 33 ff
O: Persian king, wearing kidaris and kandys, quiver over shoulder, in kneeling-running stance right, holding dagger in right hand, bow in left.
R: Irregular incuse punch.

Some brief reading about these Achaemenid sigloi informs me that they fall into four broad chronological categories (Carradice Type I-IV), featuring the royal archer in different poses or with secondary weapons. It also informs me that now I have three more of these sigloi on my want list . Reading can be dangerous.

Post your coins of the Achaemenid Empire!

 

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Own none but nice addition & obverse.

 

I have one I have been meaning to post. I will get around to it sooner or later. Its actually a Type I with the 1st reverse. My friend has written the definitive book on these, and added mine to all known coins. There are 123 known, but only 19 known with the 1st reverse die. So, yeah, you might have to save up for a while and be very patient to get one of these. About half are in museums, so you have about 60 coins that you can own. They are actually the very first coins struck by the Persian Empire.



Here is mine from the seller's pic. The biggest difference is the first Type only had a half figure, not a full figure of the king. They were also struck on the Croesid standard of about 5.2 grams, not the higher 5.5 grams.

Edit: Btw, its attributed to Darius the Great, (of Marathon fame), and father of Xerxes. Even the name of these, Darics, comes from Darius.

 

Funny you should post this coin since I got one recently. I haven't received it yet, so the images and the identification/reference are the sellers.

Yours is very nice with the obverse centered quite well. Mine looks like the king is smiling.


ACHAEMENID EMPIRE
AR Siglos
OBVERSE: Persian king or hero in kneeling/running stance right, holding spear and bow
REVERSE: Incuse punch
Struck at Persia, 485-420 BC
5.5g, 16mm
Carradice Type IIIb, Group A/B (pl. XII, 18)

 

neat little coins Z and bing.

also don't have one, but pretty high on my list...i'll be aiming for you guys grade and price range.

 

Nice smiley king on that one, Bing.
And interesting Type I, Med, thanks for the info on it.

 

Really cool examples guys!!

My two coins are now in someone else's collection (Jeez, you'd think the new owners would at least allow 'visitation' rights LOL).

The closest I now have are a couple of 'budget' Parthian examples...I guess I'll wait for that thread to come along

 

Zumbly showed a type IV, Medoraman a type I (I'm jealous since I don't have that one) and Bing added a type III so I'll fill in the gap with my type II.

Type II is distinguished by the archer actually shooting the bow rather than just carrying it. I am very proud of mine because of the centering and the rare on flan shoe details. The four types are pretty much in order in terms of rarity with type I (half length) being by far the least common. III (spear) and IV (dagger) are not far apart. II (shooter) is less rare than I but not nearly as common as III or IV.

If you want rare, try to get the set of fractional denominations. The big ones are not large but far more common than halves, thirds, sixths, twelfths and 24ths. My smallest is a worn out 1/12 weighing 0.5g. Still it is as well centered as these type IV's get.

 

Nice Type II Doug. Bill Daehn in his paper, (unfortunately for some reason its not on our website, I will try to correct that), goes over all 4 Types. He believes Type I was issued during Darius' handling of uprisings around Lydia after they took them over. Later, when they had time to properly construct a coinage, they struck the Type II's to pay for Greek mercenaries and also introduce a gold coinage system. So basically the Type I was an "emergency" coin to pay to suppress revolts and struck on the previous weight standards. Later, when they developed their own standards and conversion system between gold and silver, did Type II's get struck. Also, no gold Type I's were struck, but were struck for Type II-IV.

You are also right the Type II is scarcer than III and IV. Type I's are usually listed as rare, but since there are at least 123 known now, I am not sure if that is really a "rare" ancient. What do you guys think? Is 123 for an ancient coin "rare" or simply "scarce"?

 

RARE!

 

A population of 123 sounds rare to me! Or at minimum, EXCEEDINGLY SCARCE!

 

Nice dagger-guy addition, Z-Bro ... very cool coin types, fellas

I have a humble example (I think the banker's mark adds a bit to its overall sweet-appeal)



... great score, Z

 

Do you understand the theory that the coins were made for Lydia and not just general issues of the Empire? I don't. The assumption seems to be that coinage was not required by the Persian Empire as a whole but only where they were dealing with the Greeks who wanted a coinage economy. I have not seen the evidence.

Yes, Steve, the banker's mark adds appeal to this coin. Some have marks placed poorly that detract and then again some have marks more interesting than the coin itself. Why do you think I bought this one?

I maintain that this coin was accidentally struck horizontally which made it strange enough that it had to be tested for silver quality by multiple bankers. IMHO the owl at far left is worth more than the coin.

 

very cool coin, Doug

 

There has been two major hoards in which Type I's showed up, and both were found in western Turkey. I have seen many other hoards being found in Iran and Iraq, and almost never is a Type I found. IN fact, Type II's are very rare in hoards found there.

What evidence do you have Doug that coinage was required in Persia around 500 BC? There had never been coinage there before, so what evidence is there that somehow the ENTIRE empire, (the largest on earth at the time), suddenly overnight NEEDED coinage the instant they conquered Lydia? Lydia by this time had been striking coins for 150 years while the Persians never used them. Why are you so certain that suddenly they were NEEDED everywhere?

The main theory goes that after the Persians conquered Lydia they needed coinage for those people who were used in dealing with it. These were Type I's. Later, they instituted Type II's in all of western Turkey and the Levant. By the time Type III's came out Mesopotamia was getting used to dealing with them, and they spread further. The hoard evidence supports this view, with many more coins being found in the western reaches of the empire, and nearly none in the eastern half.

 

Very interesting and thought provoking discussion....which is all new to me.

 

What makes sense to me is that I and II were for the West and the two later ones were for the whole empire after they 'discovered' the need for coins. I just have not seen this discussed before.

 

Well that is a more fair statement. I would say the III and IV's probably circulated more in the west, but especially by the time of the IV's the idea of coinage was more widespread amongst all Persians. There have been hoards in the East in which later sigloi were found, along with Alexandrian pieces.

Sorry if I misunderstood your previous comment, I thought you were saying all sigloi, from the beginning, were widely circulated. I will see if Bill Daehn will post his excellent writeup on them on our website. It literally lists every Type I that has been sold publicly for over 100 years. He is who got me interested in the Type I. For those who do not know, CNG published his book, probably the best numismatic bibliography for greek coins in existence. Great guy, and smarter than I on all numismatic subjects.

 

Thanks for the coin pics and interesting discussion, guys... all very cool. Already I feel justified in having to add the other Types to my want list .

I don't know if the info is exhaustive or updated, but this Numiswiki entry usefully provides a broad illustrated overview of the various Types and subgroups:
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=siglos