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Greek coins, Lete or Siris, Stater

Currency:CHF Category:Coins & Paper Money / Coins: Ancient Start Price:6,400.00 CHF Estimated At:8,000.00 - 10,000.00 CHF
Greek coins, Lete or Siris, Stater
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Greek coins, Lete or Siris, Stater ca. 520, AR 9.17 g. Nude ithyphallic satyr grasping r. arm of nymph, trying to move away from him; at sides and above, three pellets. Rev. Rough incuse square. Svoronos, Hellénisme Primitif, pl. VII, 26. Traité I 1566 and pl. L, 5. AMNG pl. XIV, 31. SNG ANS 950. Very rare. An attractive specimen of this desirable issue in superb Archaic style, lightly toned and extremely fine For a coinage that clearly was important in its time, and which today is known in a considerable variety of styles, it is remarkable that the mint identification is still a matter of debate. Even if we do not know where in the Thraco-Macedonian region these coins were struck, in some cases we know where they ended up since they have been found in documented hoards from Thrace, Rhodes, Syria, Jordan, Bactria, Egypt, and Southern Italy (where 18 were amongst the coins of the 1911 Taranto hoard; ICGH 1874). On the rare occasions that inscriptions are present on these coins, they seem to be retrograde and are faintly engraved, and thus are difficult to read. An apparent mis-reading in the 19th Century as ‘Letaion’ led to an enduring attribution to Lete, a Macedonian city about 15 miles north of Thessalonica. That tentative identification has been used by generations of scholars. However, more recently some authorities have come to accept Svoronos’ reading as ‘Sirinon’, the ethnic of Siris, a town in the region of Mt. Pangaeus. Kraay agreed with Svoronos’ reading, and thus associated these coins with the Satrai, a tribe also in the Pangaion region.