but I can't think of any study that suggests mint location. tom
I'm a beginner in Eastern coins but undoubtedly brought to the table prejudices from other coins I've experienced. Maybe
part of the appeal of
Soter Megas to me is a parallel I see to my main interest, the
denarii of
Septimius Severus. We of the
Severan persuasion refer to Eastern mints at
Alexandria,
Laodicea and
Emesa. Of these, the last is most frequently listed in quotation marks because we now tend to dismiss the
mint locations of the Syrian mints and, to a degree, question their number and separation.
Still, because of the Gospel known as
RIC (Mattingly/Sydenham, 1936) coins are cataloged according to that separation.
Alexandria is a
bit different because the artistic
style of the
denarii screams out a relation to the tetradrachms of that city. Certainly it is possible that engravers were transferred from
Alexandria to somewhere else but, for the time being, it seems reasonable to use that name to identify those coins. What is now called
Emesa and
Laodicea was once termed
Antioch based to some degree on that city being very significant in the region (rather like Taxila) but I've never been convinced that the
hands that cut
denarius dies and those that did local issues were related. Someday, someone will sort out the
Severan mess and we will start throwing around a new name or three. What is significant is not where the
mint was located but whether there was a system of branch mints and whether we have any
hope of separating them into A, B or C. I tend to agree with the 70 engravers comment even though I have only handled about 70 SM coins. It appears that dies were produced by cutters on death row and no one lasted more than a die or two. The evidence I see suggests there were two
denominations and each exists in a range of ray counts and styles. The idea of dating by a countdown is hard to swallow (I understand how you add a ray each year but what did they plan to do if SM outlasted the rays (perhaps there was a calendar like the Mayans ending in 2012?)? The square letterform matter is hard for me since 7/8 of the coins have few enough letters that it is hard to compare. Does anyone have examples of die matched coins from the series? Some of the 'square' letters do seem to be larger and more ragged to me but square isn't the word I'd use.
I've been advised to check the more recent works but I find nothing online including suggestions of books to seek. The
Mitchiner book has a special place in my heart because of all the photos (I like books with photos) and the fact that it is what I 'bought' with the ridiculous number of 'Geopoints' I
had built up when my coin site was hosted by Geocities. Yahoo bought Geocities, canceled the program and told all of us we
had to spend the points or lose them.
Mitchiner was the only ancient coin book on their list right then that I did not already have so I bought it (for no cash but a lot of Geopoints). Certainly it has faults but you don't have to be perfect (ask
RIC) just a step ahead of the competition. One thing I got from looking over Tom's site is a feeling that
Kushan is far from the most obscure coinage available to collectors.
Thanks for the replies.
