Between Mesopotamia and Greece: Cultural influences in Cilician Coin-iconography from the Late 5th to the Early 4th Century BC

Abstract

Our knowledge regarding Cilician coinage between the late 5th and the early 4th century BC has increased considerably in the course of the last two decades. This has made an updated and revised inventory of all the respective issues an indispensable requirement. A comparative analysis of the huge variety of contemporary series from different mints in Kilikia Tracheia and Kilikia Pedias, namely from Ura, Kelenderis, Holmoi, Nagidos, Aŋchiale, Soloi, Tarsos, Mallos and Issos, shows that the region had rather been a part of the Ancient Orient than of the Greek oikumene during the period in question. It is, therefore, not advisable to interpret Cilician coin-iconography by the simple application of a principally Greek canon. A complete understanding of the imagery on early Cilician coins requires a far more complex approach: This must take into account all the various roots, which have created this multifaceted and unique blend of symbolic representations. Such a critical endeavour may actually yield information about regional events, which are not reported by our literary tradition.

Keywords

• coin-iconography
• cilicia
• mesopotamia
• luwian
• aramaean
• greek
• achaemenid
• syennesis