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The Aşvan Hoard: Coins of two Cappadocian Monarchs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Anthony McNicoll
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Extract

During the second season of excavations on Aşvan Kale (June – September 1969) an area of over two hundred square metres was cleared to two related late Hellenistic phases (“Hellenistic lla and b” –Mitchell, above, p. 123). On 28th September, during the removal of a pisé wall of the earlier phase, a crudely made pot with two pierced lug handles was found set in the pisé. In it was a hoard of forty-eight silver coins (see Figs. 2–3).

The coins are catalogued and registered as Aşv./69/326 nos.l –48. They are deposited in Elâziğ, and will be displayed in the new museum which is being built to house the finds from the various digs in the Keban region. All forty-eight coins are drachms; forty-seven are of Ariobarzanes 1 Philoromaios (96–63 B.C.) and one is of his rival Ariarathes IX Eusebes (101–87 B.C.). The coins had a green incrustation probably similar to that of the Cappadocian hoard discussed by Mørkholm, who thought it was caused by burial in a copper or bronze container. This is not so for the Aşvan hoard, where the incrustation must be caused by the corrosion of the copper content in the coins. It appears that the late silver coinage of Ariobarzanes I was far from pure.

Type
Archaeology: Site reports and artifacts
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 23 , December 1973 , pp. 181 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1973

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References

1 I wish to thank Mr. D. F. Allen, Dr. O. Mørkholm and Dr. H. Pfeiler for their advice concerning the examination and presentation of the hoard.

2 Mørkholm, O., “The Coinage of Ariarathes VIII and Ariarathes IX of Cappadocia” (Essays in Greek Coinage Presented to Stanley Robinson, eds. Kraay, C. M. and Jenkins, G. K., 1968), 258 Google Scholar.

3 Simonetta, B. in Numismatic Chronicle 7, 1 (1961)Google Scholar; 7, 3 (1963); 7, 7 (1967) and Mørkholm, O. in Numismatic Chronicle 7, 2 (1962)Google Scholar; 7, 4 (1964); 7, 9 (1969) and Essays Robinson (above, n. 2).

4 The monogram presumably identified the magistrate responsible for striking the coin.

5 Pfeiler Collection, unpublished.

6 Simonetta, B., “Coinage of the Cappadocian Kings” (Numismatic Chronicle 7, 1)Google Scholar.