The ancient Greek City State of Tarsus was located about 10 km in from the Mediterranean coast in the ancient region of Cilicia. This ancient region was situated on the south central Mediterranean coast of modern day Turkey, just north of the Island of Cyprus. With a history going back over 6,000 years, Tarsus has been an important stop for traders and a focal point of many civilizations. Cilicia’s coastal landscape & its commerce made the area popular with both traders & pirates. During the Roman Empire, Tarsos was the capital of the province of Cilicia. According to Wikipedia, it was the scene of the first meeting between Mark Antony and Cleopatra, and the birthplace of Paul the Apostle. Here is Tarsus on a map: Here is the Tarsus coin that recently found its way into my collection: CILICIA, Tarsus AR Stater 379 – 374 B.C. 9.86 gms, 22 mm Obv: Baal of Tarsus enthroned L holding scepter with Aramaic Legend to right Rev: Helmeted head Left with Aramaic legend to left & right Grade: good VF with attractive light toning on original rough surfaces. Good centering and strike. Other: Sear 5641
A fellow CoinTalker once posted one of these same coins & provided the following interpretation of the Aramaic legends: On the obverse to the right of Ba’al is B’LTRZ (= Baltaars) On the reverse to the right of the bearded male is HLK (= Cilicia) On the reverse to the left of the bearded male is FRNBZW (= Pharnabazos) Pharnabazos was the Persian military commander 380-374 B.C. For those logophilically inclined CoinTalkers that really want to learn to read, this link describes the translation of individual letters: https://bobcargill.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/ctbtb_alphabet_chart12_proto_1000.jpg Now here is the map full of coins. This is fun with maps. Please post em’ if you got ‘em.
Lycia, Mysia, Pontos, Rhodes, Ephesos, Troas and Cilicia => man, that's 1/2 of my collection!! I'll toss-in this sweet example from Troas ... ... baaaaaaaah!!
That is a very nice coin and informative write-up. I do not own any from Tarsus, but I do own this from Korykos, Cilicia: CILICIA, KORYKOS CITY COINAGE AE 19 OBVERSE: Turreted head of Tyche right; A behind. Circle of dots REVERSE: ΚΩΡΥΚΙΩΤΩΝ, Hermes standing left, holding caduceus, ΕΥ/ΕΠΙ/ΕΡ in left field Struck at Cilicia 1st century BC (100-30 BC) 5.87g, 19.42 SNG Levante 792; SNG France 1075
Get a big map Steve. Place all your coins on it & snap a pic...... Maybe this could be done in a thread more easily by some CT member that has good photo editing skills and good thread management skills. Cointalkers could all contribute a coin to the map. Has this kind of "fill the map" thread ever been done before?
It's an interesting idea, although the map would be terribly congested in several areas. I played around with a somewhat interactive map last year but the result wasn't very exciting. I didn't put much effort into it though. http://www.tifcollection.com/#!coins-of-peloponnesus/c1b2d
Fantastic OP coin!! And terrific posts Steve and Bing! I'll throw in one for now, purchased from 'Noob' that I haven't posted until now: Aspendos, Pamphylia, AR Stater; Wrestlers/Slinger; 370-333 BC:
I think an interactive map where we all supply a coin is a fantastic idea, but have no photo editing skills to offer. Here's an anonymous Cilician silver of minor denomination, probably from Tarsos. Cilicia, Tarsos 4th century BC AR 3/4 obol .5gm - 9 mm Obv: Baal seated left holding corn-ear with bunch of grapes. Rev: Forepart of wolf right, crescent in field ot left, all within dotted square Ref: BMC21.176, 86
I love the map and the coin Collect89. I always appreciate a map to add context to the coins we collect. I think the staters of Cilicia and Tarsus are some of the most stunning ancient coins available. I always questioned as to whether those minted in Tarsus around 400 BC are classified as Persian or Greek. Since the rulers depicted on them are Persian. Anyhoo, here's my example. Persian Empire; Cilicia Tarsus; BC 380-374 AR Stater, 23mm/10.3g OBV: Head of Arethusa, Patron naiad (water nymph) of Syracuse, facing slightly left wearing single pendant earrings and necklace REV: Bearded head Left of Pharnabazos (or Ares), Persian military commander wearing crested helmet with raised ear flap. (Price 2949)
Thanks all. Here is the ancient map covered with a few more of everyone's ancient coins. Ancientnut's perfect example got stacked on top of my Tarsus coin. Who knew that ancient coins could be stacked so well. Sorry Race Bannon, I didn't see your cool coin until this morning. Let's pretend it is sandwiched between my coin with AncientNut's coin on top. It would be nice to do a couple map threads at CT but we need an expert map maker / thread maker to host it. Some areas of the map are always going to get crowded with a bunch of examples. Today's map is crowded around Pamphylia & Cilicia (maybe because some of you noticed my new coins from Side & Tarsus). Rhodes could have a stack a meter high if we all posted our Caria Island coins.
This thread makes me want to get some maps and "map" my coins. FORVM has a bunch...it will have to wait because right now I'm conducting research on a closed Air Force base.
Perhaps someone would like to take on the task of figuring out a 'want' list of coins that could be dropped in to maps with minimal overlapping. It might be best to do more than one map of one region based on time period showing an overview of hotbeds of coinage early, middle, late, Roman and medieval (for example). Having the list, we might have threads asking who has a specific coin that is needed to fill a gap. Certainly some of these cities were big coin users and others mostly used other cities' coins or functioned without a coin economy. The maps might be interesting to point out those places. I have shown my Aspendos many times here. It is like Mikey's but has a countermark which the first two posts in this thread will allow you to read as long as you realize that Aramaic reads right to left. I usually give the translation but Collect89 has empowered all who care to read to do it themselves.
I see LUY which I cannot read right to left & translate with the chart I posted. To be honest, I only recognize the Y shaped character. https://bobcargill.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/ctbtb_alphabet_chart12_proto_1000.jpg I cheated & simply searched for a previous Doug Smith thread to learn the translation. Apparently, LUY when read right to left spells out Ba'al. Can someone explain to me how we get Ba'al from those characters?
@ C89. The 3 letters of Baal, read from right to left, are likely to be ancient Hebrew or Phoenician. I noticed this from the list of Alphabets you provided to us at the beginning of this thread. The two Phoenician and Ancient Hebrew Alphabets seem to be too similar ( almost the same). Now, the Phoenicians had no vowels. Reading from right to left, the first letter is Beth ( B) then Ayin ( O) then Lamed (L). So the only enigma is in the middle letter Ayin which is a consonant and not the vowel O that we know. It's typically Semitic and it only exists now in both the Hebrew and Arabic languages. We don't pronounce in our Latin Alphabet, nor even the Greek. Finally..those 3 letters are BAAL . The 2 AA in the middle are replacing the Semitic consonant Ayin. Sorry for this complicated but necessary explanation. LOL..
