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Sigloi
The Achaemenid Empire issued coins from 520 BCE–450 BCE to 330 BCE. The Persian daric was the first gold coin which, along with a similar silver coin, the siglos (from grc, σίγλος, he, שֶׁקֶל, '' shékel'') represented the first bimetallic monetary standard.Michael Alram"DARIC" ''Encyclopaedia Iranica'', December 15, 1994, last updated November 17, 2011 It seems that before the Persians issued their own coinage, a continuation of Lydian coinage under Persian rule is likely. Achaemenid coinage includes the official imperial issues (Darics and Sigloi), as well as coins issued by the Achaemenid provincial governors (satraps), such as those stationed in Asia Minor. Early coinage of Western Asia under the Achaemenid Empire When Cyrus the Great (550–530 BC) came to power, coinage was unfamiliar in his realm. Barter, and to some extent silver bullion, was used instead for trade. The practice of using silver bars for currency also seems to have been current in Central ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siglos
The Achaemenid Empire issued coins from 520 BCE–450 BCE to 330 BCE. The Persian daric was the first gold coin which, along with a similar silver coin, the siglos (from grc, σίγλος, he, שֶׁקֶל, '' shékel'') represented the first bimetallic monetary standard.Michael Alram"DARIC" ''Encyclopaedia Iranica'', December 15, 1994, last updated November 17, 2011 It seems that before the Persians issued their own coinage, a continuation of Lydian coinage under Persian rule is likely. Achaemenid coinage includes the official imperial issues (Darics and Sigloi), as well as coins issued by the Achaemenid provincial governors (satraps), such as those stationed in Asia Minor. Early coinage of Western Asia under the Achaemenid Empire When Cyrus the Great (550–530 BC) came to power, coinage was unfamiliar in his realm. Barter, and to some extent silver bullion, was used instead for trade. The practice of using silver bars for currency also seems to have been current in Centra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shekel
Shekel or sheqel ( akk, 𒅆𒅗𒇻 ''šiqlu'' or ''siqlu,'' he, שקל, plural he, שקלים or shekels, Phoenician: ) is an ancient Mesopotamian coin, usually of silver. A shekel was first a unit of weight—very roughly —and became currency in ancient Tyre and ancient Carthage and then in ancient Israel under the Maccabees. Name The word is based on the Semitic verbal root for "weighing" (''Š-Q-L''), cognate to the Akkadian or , a unit of weight equivalent to the Sumerian . Use of the word was first attested in during the Akkadian Empire under the reign of Naram-Sin, and later in in the Code of Hammurabi. The ''Š-Q-L'' root is found in the Hebrew words for "to weigh" (), "weight" () and "consideration" (). It is cognate to the Aramaic root ''T-Q-L'' and the Arabic ''root Θ-Q-L'' ''ثقل'', in words such as (the weight), (heavy) or (unit of weight). The famous writing on the wall in the Biblical Book of Daniel includes a cryptic use of the word in Ara ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Croesus
Croesus ( ; Lydian: ; Phrygian: ; grc, Κροισος, Kroisos; Latin: ; reigned: c. 585 – c. 546 BC) was the king of Lydia, who reigned from 585 BC until his defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 547 or 546 BC. Croesus was renowned for his wealth; Herodotus and Pausanias noted that his gifts were preserved at Delphi. The fall of Croesus had a profound effect on the Greeks, providing a fixed point in their calendar. "By the fifth century at least," J. A. S. Evans has remarked, "Croesus had become a figure of myth, who stood outside the conventional restraints of chronology." Name The name of Croesus was not attested in contemporary inscriptions in the Lydian language. In 2019, D. Sasseville and K. Euler published a research of Lydian coins apparently minted during his rule, where the name of the ruler was rendered as ''Qλdãns''. The name comes from the Latin transliteration of the Greek , which was itself the ancient Hellenic adaptation of the Lydia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Achaemenid Empire At Its Greatest Extent According To Oxford Atlas Of World History 2002
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest empire in history, spanning a total of from the Balkans and Egypt in the west to Central Asia and the Indus Valley in the east. Around the 7th century BC, the region of Persis in the southwestern portion of the Iranian plateau was settled by the Persians. From Persis, Cyrus rose and defeated the Median Empire as well as Lydia and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, marking the formal establishment of a new imperial polity under the Achaemenid dynasty. In the modern era, the Achaemenid Empire has been recognized for its imposition of a successful model of centralized, bureaucratic administration; its multicultural policy; building complex infrastructure, such as road systems and an organized postal system; the use of official languages across its t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ionia
Ionia () was an ancient region on the western coast of Anatolia, to the south of present-day Izmir. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionian tribe who had settled in the region before the Archaic period. Ionia proper comprised a narrow coastal strip from Phocaea in the north near the mouth of the river Hermus (now the Gediz), to Miletus in the south near the mouth of the river Maeander, and included the islands of Chios and Samos. It was bounded by Aeolia to the north, Lydia to the east and Caria to the south. The cities within the region figured large in the strife between the Persian Empire and the Greeks. Ionian cities were identified by mythic traditions of kinship and by their use of the Ionic dialect, but there was a core group of twelve Ionian cities who formed the Ionian League and had a shared sanctuary and festival at Panionion. These twelve cities were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Croeseid
The Croeseid, anciently ''Kroiseioi stateres'', was a type of coin, either in gold or silver, which was minted in Sardis by the king of Lydia Croesus (561–546 BC) from around 550 BC. Croesus is credited with issuing the first true gold coins with a standardised purity for general circulation, and the world's first bimetallic monetary system. Precedents Before Croesus, his father Alyattes had already started to mint various types of non-standardized coins. They were made in a naturally occurring material called electrum, a variable mix of gold and silver (with about 54% gold and 44% silver), and were in use in Lydia, its capital city Sardis and surrounding areas for about 80 years before Croesus' reign as King of Lydia. The unpredictability of electrum coins' composition implied that they had a variable value, which greatly hampered the development of standardised coinage. The royal symbol stamped on the coin, similar to a seal, was a declaration of the value of the contents i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stater
The stater (; grc, , , statḗr, weight) was an ancient coin used in various regions of Greece. The term is also used for similar coins, imitating Greek staters, minted elsewhere in ancient Europe. History The stater, as a Greek silver currency, first as ingots, and later as coins, circulated from the 8th century BC to AD 50. The earliest known stamped stater (having the mark of some authority in the form of a picture or words) is an electrum turtle coin, struck at Aegina that dates to about 650 BC. It is on display at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. According to Robin Lane Fox, the stater as a weight unit was borrowed by the Euboean stater weighing from the Phoenician shekel, which had about the same weight as a stater () and was also one fiftieth of a mina.Lane Fox, Robin. ''Travelling Heroes: Greeks and Their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer''. P. 94. London: Allen Lane, 2008. The silver stater minted at CorinthSmith, William. ''A Dictionary of Greek an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lycia
Lycia ( Lycian: 𐊗𐊕𐊐𐊎𐊆𐊖 ''Trm̃mis''; el, Λυκία, ; tr, Likya) was a state or nationality that flourished in Anatolia from 15–14th centuries BC (as Lukka) to 546 BC. It bordered the Mediterranean Sea in what is today the provinces of Antalya and Muğla in Turkey as well some inland parts of Burdur Province. The state was known to history from the Late Bronze Age records of ancient Egypt and the Hittite Empire. Lycia was populated by speakers of the Luwian language group. Written records began to be inscribed in stone in the Lycian language (a later form of Luwian) after Lycia's involuntary incorporation into the Achaemenid Empire in the Iron Age. At that time (546 BC) the Luwian speakers were decimated, and Lycia received an influx of Persian speakers. Ancient sources seem to indicate that an older name of the region was Alope ( grc, Ἀλόπη}, ). The many cities in Lycia were wealthy as shown by their elaborate architecture start ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caria
Caria (; from Greek: Καρία, ''Karia''; tr, Karya) was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid- Ionia (Mycale) south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionian and Dorian Greeks colonized the west of it and joined the Carian population in forming Greek-dominated states there. Carians were described by Herodotus as being of Minoan descent,''The Histories'', Book I Section 171. while he reports that the Carians themselves maintained that they were Anatolian mainlanders intensely engaged in seafaring and were akin to the Mysians and the Lydians. The Carians spoke Carian, a native Anatolian language closely related to Luwian. Also closely associated with the Carians were the Leleges, which could be an earlier name for Carians. Municipalities of Caria Cramer's detailed catalog of Carian towns in classical Greece is based entirely on ancient sources. The multiple names of towns and geomorphic features, such as bays and headlands, reveal an ethni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Satrapies
A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires. The satrap served as viceroy to the king, though with considerable autonomy. The word came to suggest tyranny or ostentatious splendour, and in modern usage refers to any subordinate or local ruler, usually with unfavourable connotations of corruption. A satrapy is the territory governed by a satrap. Etymology The word is derived via Latin from Greek ''satrápes'' (), itself borrowed from an Old Iranian ''*khshathra-pa''. In Old Persian, which was the native language of the Achaemenids, it is recorded as ''khshathapavan'' (, literally "protector of the province"). The Median form is reconstructed as ''*khshathrapavan-''. It is cognate with Sanskrit ''kshetrapal'' (). The Biblical Hebrew form is ''aḥashdarpan'' , as found in . In the Parthian (language of the Arsacid Empire) and Middle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harpagus
Harpagus, also known as Harpagos or Hypargus (Ancient Greek Ἅρπαγος; Akkadian: ''Arbaku''), was a Median general from the 6th century BC, credited by Herodotus as having put Cyrus the Great on the throne through his defection during the battle of Pasargadae. Biography According to Herodotus' ''Histories'', Harpagus was a member of the Median royal house in service to King Astyages, the last king of Media. When word reached Astyages that Cyrus was gathering his forces, he ordered Harpagus, as his primary general, to lead the army against Cyrus. After a three-day battle on the plain of Pasargadae, Harpagus took his revenge for the death of his son when he turned on the battlefield in favor of Cyrus, resulting in Astyages' defeat and the formation of the Persian Empire. Myth Herodotus accounts for the turn of Harpagus' support to a version of the cannibal feast of Thyestes. He reports that Astyages, after having a dream that his daughter, Mandane, would give birth to a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sardis
Sardis () or Sardes (; Lydian: 𐤳𐤱𐤠𐤭𐤣 ''Sfard''; el, Σάρδεις ''Sardeis''; peo, Sparda; hbo, ספרד ''Sfarad'') was an ancient city at the location of modern ''Sart'' (Sartmahmut before 19 October 2005), near Salihli, in Turkey's Manisa Province. Sardis was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia, an important city of the Persian Empire, the seat of a Seleucid satrap, the seat of a proconsul under the Roman Empire, and the metropolis of the province Lydia in later Roman and Byzantine times. It is mentioned in the New Testament. Its importance was due first to its military strength, secondly to it being situated on an important highway leading from the interior to the Aegean coast, and thirdly to its commanding the wide and fertile plain of the Hermus. Geography Sardis was situated in the middle of Hermus valley, at the foot of Mount Tmolus, a steep and lofty spur which formed the citadel. It was about south of that Hermus. Today, the site is l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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