Xanthos, Lycia (Kuprlli Dynast; 460-450 BC.)
AR Stater

Obv: Achaemenian/dynastic rendering of Zeus Ammon with pleated beard; thick roped circular border; possible signs of overstriking.
Rev: Triskeles with dynast legend KO-P-[RLL] surrounding; dotted square border.

Attribution: Traité II 308, Pl.97,28; Morkholm/Zahle 136-141,Pl.4,A33/P34; Monnaies et Medailles 72 (#671), 10.6.87.
Provenance: ex. Fortuna Fine Arts (lot#52), 1.10.09

Weight: 8.43 gm.
Maximal Diameter: 21 mm.
Axis: 12

Note: Six examples noted in Morkholm/Zahle (1972) with one or two possibly in private hands. Known examples (from Morkholm/Zahle listing) are in the Hague, Ashmolean Museum, British Museum, Moretti Coll. Milan, and Paris Cabinet. All six examples cited in Morkholm/Zahle were reported to be within a 8.41 - 8.65 gm. "light" Lycian weight standard range and struck from the same set of dies.

"A terminus post is offered by some coins of Cyrene in North Africa. Their obverse type, the head of Zeus Ammon, was copied very carefully on coins nos. 136-148, although the beard is treated in a slightly different way. The copyist also took care to reproduce the peculiar frame of the Cyrenaican prototype. This Lycian type occurs in a recent hoard (pg.75), so that in this case we have both a terminus post and a terminus ante."

"Zeus Ammon on A33 and a49-50, shortly mentioned above, is a close copy of the coins from Cyrene (period II, Group 2). These coins only distinguish themselves from the model by the stylization of the beard. In Cyrene the beard is composed of long, parallel, slightly waved "locks," while on the Kuprlli coins the beard is divided horizontally into four "tiers." This unusual stylizaiton appears on one dynast portrait, normally considered as Kherei, but it is without inscription (BMC Lycia 102). On other, certain Kherei coins is a similar reproduction of a horizontally divided beard, but it is divided into many more tiers (BMC Lycia 101). Doubtless this is an Achaemenian influence, just as when we see the same, long, horizontally divided beards on different works of sculpture from the Persian period in Asia Minor. Strangely enough this beard stylizaion is not seen on the other dynast and satrap coins from western and southern Asia Minor."

Morkholm, O. & Zahle, J. (1972). The coinage of Kuprlli: Numismatic and archaeological study. Acta Archaeologica, Vol. 43, pg.57-113.

JB302