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Gold croeseid stater, no. IAM 8947, from hoard of 30 coins. Obverse. (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul) -
Gold croeseid stater, no. IAM 8947, from hoard of 30 coins. Reverse. (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul) -
Gold croeseid stater, no. IAM 8948, from hoard of 30 coins. Obverse. (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul) -
Gold croeseid stater, no. IAM 8948, from hoard of 30 coins. Reverse. (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul)
From Hoard of 30 Coins: Two Gold Croeseid Staters
The Lydians and their World
(2010)
Cat. 28_1-28_2
- Date
- Second quarter of 6th c BC, Lydian
- Museum
- Istanbul, Archaeological Museum, 8947-8948
- Museum Inventory No.
- 8947-8948
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- IAM 8947-8948
- Material
- Gold
- Object Type
- Coin
- Coin Denomination
- Stater
- Coin Mint
- Sardis
- Issuers
- Officina
- Has Mint Mark
- Has Control Mark
- Has Monogram
- Has Countermark
- Hoard
- Monograph 13 Catalog No.
- Site
- Sardis
- Description
- Two gold croeseid staters. Obverse: confronted foreparts of lion and bull. Reverse: two incuse punches. Weight: 8.06 g (IAM 8947), 8.04 g (IAM 8948).
- Comments
- A hoard of 30 almost identical gold staters of croeseid type was discovered by the American Society for the Excavation of Sardis in 1922, outside the city walls of Sardis in a region with many chamber tombs. The excavators believed the hoard had been buried in a burial chamber, which had mostly washed away. The coins are of the lighter gold standard of about 8.06 g, in contrast to the gold twelfth-stater No. 27, which was minted on the heavier standard. The coins are assigned by Nimchuk to the earlier, more naturalistic style group of croeseid coinage, Styles A-C, with the majority being of style C.
Four coins from this hoard, and the jar in which they were found, are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which was one of the sponsors of the 1922 excavations (inv. nos. 26.59.2-5, and 26.59.6).
- See Also
- Kroll, “Coins of Sardis”.
- Bibliography
- Shear 1922, 396-400, figs. 6-8; cf. Naster 1965, Nimchuk 2000
- Author
- NDC