Persian darics from Notion, TurkeyNotion Archaeological Project, University of Michigan
Posted on 08/09/2024 11:54:47 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
According to a report in The New York Times, a cache of gold coins dated to the late fifth century B.C. has been discovered in the ancient Greek city of Notion, which is located on the west coast of Anatolia, by Christopher Ratté of the University of Michigan and his colleagues. The cache had been placed in an olpe, a type of small jug, and buried in a corner of a dwelling that was found underneath the courtyard of a house dated to the third century B.C. The coins have been identified as Persian darics, named for either the root of the Old Persian word for gold, or for Darius I, who ruled the Persian Empire from 521 to 486 B.C. The coins show the Persian king wearing a long tunic and kneeling while holding a bow and a long spear. The backs of the coins are blank except for a punch mark. Since such coins were usually used to pay soldiers of fortune, Ratté explained, the cache is thought to represent a soldier's savings, hidden during a time of warfare in a contested frontier zone. "No one ever buries a hoard of coins, especially precious metal coins, without intending to retrieve it," he said. "So only the gravest misfortune can explain the preservation of such a treasure."
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
on the reverse i discern george washington holding onto his security blanket (as would be envisioned by picasso)
Let’s see:
Darius is the featured figure on the coin, but we don’t know how the coin got its “Darics” moniker...
It’s probably a pun.
Looks more like Gandolph than a Darius...
It turns out an inept would-be assassin Archer tried but failed to kill Darius.
You can see where a piece of Darius’ ear is missing from the attempt. There were questions as to whether Darius was hit by the assassin’s arrow or perhaps by shrapnel from the nearby Court Jester’s lute, which after the attack was miraculously found to be fully intact, in tune and playable. (The Court Jester, on the other hand, was no longer funny and had to be replaced.)
What is the collector’s value for a coin like that?
[snip] History has not been kind to King Darius or to the Persian Empire itself... To the East, the Lydians, under the leadership of King Croesus... first struck gold coinage. Croesus struck coins with his likeness on them, and he was, at one time, the richest man in the primitive world, having literally thousands of pounds of Gold that he had turned into coins... As winter neared the Lydians withdrew their army, but the Persians did not follow suit. Instead, they advanced and placed the Lydian capital at Sardis under siege. After a two-week siege, the city fell and was overwhelmed by Persian forces... As Alexander the Great subjugated the Persian Empire, he did one thing that many conquering kings did. He gathered as many Gold Persian coins as he possibly could as tribute and as bounty and melted them and re-struck them in his own image... Daric gold coins were exchanged for Macedon Gold coins. The Daric coins were gathered and melted. They were then re-struck, but now bearing the head of Alexander the Great. Persian Daric gold coins are especially scarce for that reason. The conquering Macedons sought to eliminate them from their new empire. The coins that were able to survive to today were hidden for centuries and they escaped in very limited numbers. [/snip]King Darius of the Persian Empire | APMEX | December 29, 2022
['Civ footnote: When Alexander the Great[est] took Persepolis, he got the entire Persian royal treasury, probably the greatest such haul of all time.]
The Croesus keyword (who knew?), sorted:
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