Triti, Phanes, 625-600 BC, Ionia - 301224

The Phanes coins, so called for the name inscribed on them, are early

electrum Electrum is a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, with trace amounts of copper and other metals. Its color ranges from pale to bright yellow, depending on the proportions of gold and silver. It has been produced artificially, and ...

coins from

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 Ionians, Ionian and Dorians, Dorian Greeks colonized the west of i ...

Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

and are the most ancient inscribed coin series at present known.

Coins

The Phanes coins are a series of

coins issued in seven denominations:

stater The stater (; grc, , , statḗr, weight) was an ancient coin used in various regions of Ancient Greece, Greece. The term is also used for similar coins, imitating Greek staters, minted elsewhere in ancient Europe. History The stater, as a Gr ...

, 1/3, 1/6, 1/12, 1/24, 1/48, and 1/96 stater. The staters weigh 14.1 grams. All of the coins have the image of a stag or part of a stag on them. The coins were likely struck at

Ephesus Ephesus (; grc-gre, Ἔφεσος, Éphesos; tr, Efes; may ultimately derive from hit, 𒀀𒉺𒊭, Apaša) was a city in ancient Greece on the coast of Ionia, southwest of present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. It was built in t ...

. The stater and 1/3 stater coins from this series both bear Greek inscriptions. The inscriptions are written right-to-left, and the letters are the mirror image of standard Greek letters. The longer inscription, on the stater, survives in three versions, which read: ("Phaenos emi sema"), ("Phanos emi sema"), and ("Phaneos eimi"). This may be translated as "I am the badge/mark/symbol of Phanes" or "I am the sign of the bright one". The shorter legend, on the 1/3 stater coins, is ("Phaneos", meaning "of Phanes"). The coins of Phanes are amongst the earliest of Greek coins. One, a hemihekte (a twelfth

) of the issue, was found in a jar in the foundations of the

Temple of Artemis The Temple of Artemis or Artemision ( gr, Ἀρτεμίσιον; tr, Artemis Tapınağı), also known as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to an ancient, local form of the goddess Artemis (identified with Diana, a Roman god ...

dated to the late seventh century BC, making that the earliest known hoard of coins. Only six specimens of the stater are known.

Identity of Phanes

Stater, Phanes, 625-600 BC, Ionia (British Museum copy)

Phanes cannot be identified with certainty. He might have been the successful mercenary

Phanes of Halicarnassus Phanes of Halicarnassus ( grc-gre, Φάνης) was a wise council man, a tactician, and a mercenary from Halicarnassus, serving the Egyptian pharaoh Amasis II (570–526 BC). Most of what history recounts of Phanes is from the account of Herodot ...

, described by

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...

as serving first the Egyptian pharaoh

Amasis II Amasis II ( grc, Ἄμασις ; phn, 𐤇𐤌𐤎 ''ḤMS'') or Ahmose II was a pharaoh (reigned 570526 BCE) of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, the successor of Apries at Sais. He was the last great ruler of Egypt before the Persian conquest ...

and then the Persian king

Cambyses II Cambyses II ( peo, 𐎣𐎲𐎢𐎪𐎡𐎹 ''Kabūjiya'') was the second King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 530 to 522 BC. He was the son and successor of Cyrus the Great () and his mother was Cassandane. Before his accession, Cambyses ...

in his invasion of Egypt. The coins might be associated with the primeval god

Phanes Phanes ( grc, Φάνης, Phánēs, genitive ) or Protogonus () was the mystic primeval deity of procreation and the generation of new life, who was introduced into Greek mythology by the Orphism (religion), Orphic tradition; other names for ...

, whose name means "light" or "shine", or that might have been an epithet of the local goddess identified with Artemis.

Barclay V. Head Barclay Vincent Head (1844–1914) was a British numismatist and keeper of the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum.

found those suggestions unlikely and thought it more probably "the name of some prominent citizen of Ephesus".

Notes

References

{{reflist, 30em Coins of ancient Greece Caria Coin designers