Some series of the
Aspendos staters feature two letters between the wrestlers.
I've been intrigued by one combination in particular:
found on
SNG v. Aulock 4565.
This is an example of one that was sold earlier here on ForumAncientCoins:
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/catalog/roman-and-greek-coins.asp?param=85145q00.jpg&vpar=3140&zpg=91215The dating is a
bit too late for the 'L' to be an archaic form of lambda, so I was left wondering what letter it is.
I wasn't able to find much info on it. This paper (
https://www.persee.fr/doc/anatv_1013-9559_2000_act_12_1_956) features a small discussion about the staters, but seems to gloss over this peculiar letter. (I haven't been able to trace the references though)
I recently acquired the attached coin from Selge (
SNG Aulock 5243) which also contains this L in the
ethnic:
Initially I was a
bit puzzled how to read this (mainly since it was listed as an
Aspendos coin), but once I found out it was actually from Selge, I found the other
ethnic variants are:
and
(and later of course the classical
)
From this it seems clear like the 'L' is in fact a gamma on these coins. And since Selge is quite close to
Aspendos, it doesn't sound too far-fetched to ascribe the same value to the letter on the
Aspendos stater.
I tried to find if this maybe was a particular feature of Pamphylian Greek. Perhaps a different allophone such as the two digammas F and
, but information on Pamphylian is not particularly plentiful.
Or am I looking too much into this and is it just a mirrored letter without any special meaning? There's also a couple of
Syracuse tetradrachms with a upside down R for example.
Not quite sure what to make of it. Any ideas?
