Week 4 - Cultural Hybridity and "Glocalization"

The material culture of fifth- and fourth-century Lycia was characterised by a complex hybridity of Greek, Persian and Lycian elements: K. Vlassopoulos, Greeks and Barbarians, 2013, 260-267. Cultural hybridity in Achaemenid Lycia is here represented by (1) a group of 'dynastic' funerary monuments of various kinds (see E. Dusinberre, Empire, Authority and Autonomy in Achaemenid Anatolia (2013), 189-201): the 'Harpy Tomb' at Xanthos, one of a number of pillar tombs from 5thC Lycia; the early fourth-century 'Nereid Monument' at Xanthos, imitating the form of a Greek temple; and the painted chamber tomb at Karaburun; (2) a remarkable fourth-century trilingual inscription from Xanthos; (3) Lycian coins of the fifth and fourth centuries BC.  

T7 is one of the earliest 'dynastic' coinages of Lycia, struck in the name of a dynast called Kuprlli, who seems to have reigned at Xanthos between around 480 and 440 BC; he was probably the builder of the Harpy Tomb at Xanthos (constructed around 480 BC), and was responsible for a large programme of urbanisation at Xanthos in the mid-fifth century BC.  The coins T8 and T9 come from the enormous 1957 Podalia hoard (IGCH 1262), buried in central Lycia c. 370 BC.  This hoard contained some 1,600 silver coins of various denominations, mostly struck by Lycian dynasts and by the Pamphylian mint of Aspendos (J. Zahle, ‘Politics and economy in Lycia during the Persian period’, Revue des études anciennes 91/1, 1989, 169-182).  Both coins illustrate the hybrid character of Lycian elite culture in the fourth century BC.  The iconography is strongly Hellenizing; the legends are both in Lycian script; the two dynasts carry non-Lycian names, one Persian, the other Greek (Mithrapata/Perikles: S. Colvin, ‘Names in Hellenistic and Roman Lycia’, Yale Classical Studies 31, 2004, 44-84).  On Perikles' heroon at Limyra, see T. Sare, 'The sculpture of the heroon of Perike at Limyra', Anatolian Studies 63 (2013) 55-74.

Coins T1 to T3 were struck by successive members of the native Hekatomnid satrapal dynasty of Caria.  T1 (Maussollos) and T2 (Idrieus) come from the 1929 Fethiye hoard (IGCH 1266), buried c. 340 BC, which contained 67 silver tetradrachms, 49 of Ephesos, 1 of Kos, 12 in the name of Maussollos, and 5 in the name of Idrieus.  The obverse type of the three quarter facing bust of Apollo (all three coins) may be imitating the Arethusa-head tetradrachms of Syracuse in Sicily; at any rate, this divine portrait is characteristically Greek in style.  The deity on the reverse is Zeus Labraundeus, worshipped at the sanctuary of Labraunda near Mylasa, a site which was heavily monumentalised by the Hekatomnids in the fourth century BC.  All three satraps have Carian names, and the deity on the reverse is a native Carian Zeus, but the language and iconography of the coins is purely Greek.  Note the absence of any explicit Achaemenid iconographic elements.  See - K. Konuk, ‘Coinage and Identities under the Hekatomnids’, in O. Henry ed., 2010, 4th Century Karia, 101-122; K. Vlassopoulos, Greeks and Barbarians, 2013, 255-260.

The coinage T4 was struck in large quantities somewhere in western Asia Minor (perhaps in Caria) between c. 360 BC and the end of Achaemenid rule in 334 BC.  The Achaemenid-style types (note especially the archer-king on the obverse) and the absence of a legend strongly suggest that this was a true Achaemenid royal coinage, like the earlier darics and sigloi.  The production of sigloi dropped substantially in the earlier fourth century, and it is likely that the royal mints in Asia Minor eventually moved over to the production of these Chian-weight coins as a reaction to the efflorescence of Chian-weight civic and satrapal coinages in the region in the mid-fourth century BC (e.g. the satrapal coinage of the Hekatomnids of Caria).  See A. Meadows in Coin Hoards IX, 210-212; A. Meadows, ‘The Chian revolution’, in Th. Faucher et al., Nomisma, 2011, 273-295

Meydancıkkale is an important Achaemenid fortress in western Cilicia, with unusually strongly 'Persianising' architecture and relief sculpture.

T10 and T11 represent two stater-types struck at Tarsos in the late 5th / early 4th centuries BC, as part of a huge and varied local coinage with a bewildering variety of native Cilician, Persian, and Greek-style iconography (O. Casabonne, La Cilicie à l’époque achéménide (2004) 123-131: these coins are Types D3 and F10). The types are strongly militaristic, and probably indicate that the coins were struck to pay troops.  The Greek hoplite on the later coin could either be an image of a Greek mercenary in Persian service, or (more likely) represents a generic Greek opponent to the idealised Persian cavalryman on the obverse. Compare the Achaemenid chalcedony scaraboid seal from Bolsena.

Coins with the types of T12 and T13 were struck c. 384-383 BC by the Persian general Tiribazos at four Cilician cities, Mallos, Tarsos, Issos and Soloi.  They were probably intended to finance the Persian campaign against Evagoras of Salamis on Cyprus (P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander (2004) 646-652).  The combination of Greek and Aramaic legends (for the city and Persian general respectively) is unparalleled elsewhere.  The image on the reverse surely depicts Ahura Mazda, but the deity is depicted nude in Greek style; the wreath with which he is crowning himself is also a purely Hellenic iconographic element.  See P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander (2002) 1013; K. Vlassopoulos, Greeks and Barbarians (2013) 270; O. Casabonne, La Cilicie à l’époque achéménide (2004) 188-193.

Coins of the type represented by T14 were struck by Pharnabazos, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, during the period when he served as commander of the Persian forces mustering in the Levant for an unsuccessful attempt to recapture Egypt (Diodorus 15.29; P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander (2002) 652-655; O. Casabonne, La Cilicie à l’époque achéménide (2004) 194-196).  The identity of the male military figure on the reverse is unclear: an idealised portrait of Pharnabazos?  A generic Greek mercenary?  The Cilician war-god Sanda?  On any hypothesis, the Hellenic style of the portrait is remarkable.  Note also the presence of the name of the Achaemenid province of Cilicia on the reverse: what function does this serve?

T15 represents a series of coins struck in vast quantities at Tarsos in the name of a certain Tarkumuwa, probably in the 370s BC.  Tarkumuwa is unattested elsewhere, but he carries an indigenous Cilician name (derived from the name of the old Anatolian storm-god Tarhunt); he was probably a local Cilician dynast, appointed as satrap of Cilicia by Artaxerxes II (compare the local Hekatomnid satrap-dynasty in Caria).  The reverse type, depicting a generic Persian figure in anaxyrides, kandys, and bashlyk, testing the straightness of an arrow or a bow, is relatively common on ‘Greco-Persian’ seals and gems (J. Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings (1970) 317, fig. 294), and recurs on Parthian coins of the Hellenistic period (P. Thonemann, The Hellenistic World: Using Coins as Sources (2015) 92).  See O. Casabonne, La Cilicie à l’époque achéménide (2004) 174-181.

Silver staters such as T16 and T17 were struck at Tarsos in vast quantities by the last Persian satrap of Cilicia, Mazaios, a prominent courtier of Darius III who transferred his loyalty to Alexander after Gaugamela; he was Alexander’s first satrap at Babylon (for a biography, see W. Heckel, Who’s Who in the Age of Alexander the Great (2009) 156-157).  The obverse type of Mazaios’ Cilician coinage was reworked by Alexander for his own silver coinage, probably initiated shortly after the battle of Issos in 333 BC (P. Thonemann, The Hellenistic World: Using Coins as Sources (2015) 13).

Coins T31 and T32 were struck in the twilight of the Achaemenid Empire, shortly after Artaxerxes III Ochus regained control of rebellious Egypt ca.346/5 BCE. These follow a longer tradition in Egypt of striking 'imitations' of Athenian 'owl' coins. For more context, see H. P. Colburn (2020) Archaeology of Empire in Achaemenid Egypt, Chapter 6.