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Author Topic: Earliest Winged Coinage  (Read 16118 times)

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Offline slokind

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #25 on: December 06, 2006, 03:12:34 pm »
I attach, with ref. to the early staters and the Wild Beast holders and the Bee, an old photo, through glass, detail, of a winged figure on gold repoussé made to be sewn to something, and in Berlin (more in Louvre, but this shows bees and Potniai in one frame) some of the gold jewelry found at Kameiros in Rhodes.  All this stuff is dated late 7th century.  The 'die' is an intaglio mold, usually of fired clay, and the repoussé, of course, is by hammering sheet gold into it.  The famous gold from the Shaft Graves at Mycenae is mostly done exactly the same way.  I had never before thought of the possible technical relationship between repoussé jewelry and early coins, about the same size for the staters.  Not a direct causal relationship, I think, but...?
Pat L.
The Delphi one is a gorgon holding snakes.

Offline Kopperkid

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #26 on: December 07, 2006, 12:54:53 am »
Pat-

You are the best. This will help greatly. I can definetly see the style of the image of the Potniai on silver with the bee body. Even the wing design with the hands holding on to something. I found a 12 page pdf by Carol Thomas and Michael Wedde on the Potniai. Thank you once again. This is sparking all my inerest in being an archeologist as a kid. (You know how all those Indiana Jones movies effected the young minds!)
http://www.ulg.ac.be/archgrec/IMG/aegeum/aegaeum22(pdf)/04%20THOMAS-WEDDE.pdf

I also found this image from the Louvre

Offline slokind

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #27 on: December 07, 2006, 01:48:21 am »
Thanks!  That is what I live for.  I can't resist posting the Louvre's most remarkable Kameiros Potnia--nude.  And look at all that granulation in the hair.  Pat L.
True, she has no animals, but otherwise the same Presence.  The wonderful world that coinage was born in.

Offline Kopperkid

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #28 on: December 11, 2006, 01:16:35 am »
Pat-
Thought you might like this one image.
Artemis represents the nature in which she lives free and untamed, shining and wild, tender as a mother, and unyielding as a virgin. Again, here she is represented as a mistress of nature. She is winged, as often in early depictions, and holding in one hand a panther, in the other a deer. [the handle of a krater, known as the Francois Krater, c. 570 B.C., Florence Museo Archaeologico]
 This image looks familarly close to the orignial coin...I don't know if the coin has a beard or if its just the crudeness of the celator.

Offline slokind

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #29 on: December 11, 2006, 02:34:37 am »
But Kleitias, who signed the François Vase (once on each side, and the potter Ergotimos signed it twice, too), deliberately chose for the constrained rectangels on the volute handles the already very old Potnia Thêron motif.  Yes, they are very like the earliest winged creatures on coins or on repoussé ornaments like the one at Delphi, but Kleitias is later than the earliest coinage.  Did you know that on the François Vase there are two whole cycles of heroic legend, with 200 labeled figures, besides wonderful floral patterns and animal friezes and, on the foot, so in miniature, the miniature Battle of Pygmies and Cranes?  I am so happy that you discovered it.  It is one of my favorite great works of art.   Pat L.

Offline Kopperkid

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #30 on: December 13, 2006, 06:48:59 pm »
A good friend of mine got me an image of Weidnauer text. The problem is neither one of us can read German. I've tried BabelFish for a translation and have been able to come up with the following:
175
Bartiger, geflugelter im knielauf auf geriefelter flache. Langes, herabfallendes haar. Spitzer, der profillinie folgender Bart. Oberkorper von vorne. Kurzer Chiton. Bogerformig den Kopf einrahmendes Flugelpaar. Biede Arme leicht angewinkelt zur Seite gespreizt. Hande und Beine nicht mehr auf dem Schrotling.

bar tiger, more geflugelter in the kneeling run on more splined flat. Long, falling down hair. Pointedly, the profile line the following beard. Oberkorper from the front. Short Chiton. Bogerformig the head framing Flugelpaar. Biede of arms easily bended to the side spread. Hande and legs no more on the Schrotling.
---------------
177
Gleicher (?)Stempel wie bei 175 und 176. Hier nur Kopf des Damons und teilweise Korper und Flugel auf dem Scrotling. Kopfund Gesichtskonturen hier am deutlichsten. Langhaarflache in waagrechten Wellen, durch senkrechte Linien unterteilt. Haaransatz unmittelbar uber dem Auge. Kragtige, leicht nach unten gebogene Nase. Langgestrechtes Untergesicht.

More directly (?)Stempel as with 175 and 176. Here only head of the Damons and partial Korper and Flugel on the Scrotling. Kopfund face outlines here most clearly. Long-hair-flat in horizontal waves, by senkrechte lines partitions. Hair beginning directly more uber the eye. Kragtige, easily downward curved nose. Langgestrechtes Untergesicht.

Any help is greatly appreicated.

Offline esnible

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #31 on: December 14, 2006, 08:59:54 pm »
The translation software is sensitive to missing umlauts (the dots over the letters).  The first line should read:

"Bärtiger, geflügelter «Dämon» im knielauf r. auf geriefelter Fläche."

which Babel Fish translates as

"Bear tiger, winged "Daemon" in the kneeling run r. on splined surface."

That text is from page 36 of Weidauer, not pages 88-89.

To get the umlauts in Windows without a German keyboard use Start->Accessories->System Tools->Character map.  That program lets you put the characters into the clipboard and paste them to your browser or notepad.  If this is too much work Babelfish treats "ae" as "ä", etc., so you can translate

"Baertiger, gefluegelter «Daemon» im knielauf r. auf geriefelter Flaeche."

I also don't read GermanWeidauer cites Seltman's Greek Coins, which describes the figure not as a bear-tiger or demon but as "the four winged diety" in the text and "Oriental diety" in the key.  What was the question?

Seltman's Greek Coins (1955) can often be purchased inexpensively online -- I see copies on abebooks for $12.77 and $25 -- and includes 64 nice plates.  I recommend it.  Be careful not to by his other work, A Book of Greek Coins, which is totally different.

Offline Kopperkid

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #32 on: December 14, 2006, 09:17:36 pm »
Thank you for the Babelfish tips and the more accurate translation.
My attempts are to find as many examples, attributions and descriptions and place them at a single location and then attempt to define the image a little better. There are several cites that call this coin a female which led to the Pontia path. I think I am giong to apply that more specifically to the Knosos coins. I think that we are probably looking more at the Anatolian Young God (Master of Wild Beasts) as an image, since the Weidnauer images clearly depict a beard.

Offline slokind

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #33 on: December 21, 2006, 02:42:16 pm »
Ryan (and all other interested):
A strong candidate among the earliest winged figures on coins is the one in the new Gemini III.  Now I have to find it again, but for the time being it's top right in the group on the table of contents page.
Yes, in lovely electrum it is p. 40, no. 172.  Those sphinxes and sirens with a tendril coming out of the top of the head are Early Archaic, and, considering the way it's put together, I'd be surprised if this one were after c. 600 BCE.
The blurb about literary sirens, loc. cit., is entirely irrelevant.  At this date it's better characterized as a Greek version of an Egyptian soul-bird--but as we know from those Cyzicene winged boar protomai they were having a lovely time combining all sorts of bodies and heads.  Think, if your grandfather had a Late Geometric krater on his grave, how exciting it was the first time you saw something like those prototypes of chimaeras at Carchemish and Zincirli.  BTW, long before coinage, Mycenaean artists had had a fling with east-Mediterranean trade art.  That tendril coming from the head seems to have been from Levantine sources, which is not to say anything about the mint of the electrum hekte.  The motif traveled as fast as a ship could sail, and occurs simultaneously all over the Aegean and most of the peninsula.
Pat L.
Here, Late Protocorinthian (and the dating of c. 635 should be insisted on) Chigi Olpe, now in the Villa Giulia in Rome, is the double-bodied sphinx (speaking of playing with combinations), showing just the most famous example of the tendrils 'growing' from the head--however the Greeks understood them.  This is from the original publication, by lithography, in Antike Denkmäler.  The Villa Giulia forbade photography; after all, it's only been published for a century and a quarter...
Below, in grayscale, and dated c. 650 (and maybe half a generation earlier than the Chigi Olpe) is a sphinx or siren (you can't tell) from Aegina, but it is Middle to Late Protocorinthian work.
These are just ones already on my computers.

Offline Kopperkid

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #34 on: December 21, 2006, 11:32:25 pm »
Pat-

Thanks again...I can't say it too many times..you're are providing some great information on the art side, that we (collectors) tend to ignore or not spend enough time understanding. I looked through that catalogue the day it showed up. I remember seeing that coin and forgot about it. I will add this guy to my study along with your background on the tendril. Here's another one I found that appears to have the same tendril.

Offline Kopperkid

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #35 on: January 04, 2007, 12:14:57 am »
Pat-
The Chigi Olpe is quite an interesting piece. I am curious, in engineering drawings we show phantom or dotted lines to represent a part that is shown in various positions. Just out of my ignorance on the topic, (my books have not arrived yet) are the dashed lines showing the movement of the wings and tail? I noticed the lines on the warrior as well...maybe moving forward? If so, would that be the first attempts to show movement?

As a sidenote, is there any way of finding a color image of the spinx (Plate 56d) from The Luxus Phenomenon, I?

Regards,
Ryan

Ryan (and all other interested):
A strong candidate among the earliest winged figures on coins is the one in the new Gemini III.  Now I have to find it again, but for the time being it's top right in the group on the table of contents page.
Yes, in lovely electrum it is p. 40, no. 172.  Those sphinxes and sirens with a tendril coming out of the top of the head are Early Archaic, and, considering the way it's put together, I'd be surprised if this one were after c. 600 BCE.
The blurb about literary sirens, loc. cit., is entirely irrelevant.  At this date it's better characterized as a Greek version of an Egyptian soul-bird--but as we know from those Cyzicene winged boar protomai they were having a lovely time combining all sorts of bodies and heads.  Think, if your grandfather had a Late Geometric krater on his grave, how exciting it was the first time you saw something like those prototypes of chimaeras at Carchemish and Zincirli.  BTW, long before coinage, Mycenaean artists had had a fling with east-Mediterranean trade art.  That tendril coming from the head seems to have been from Levantine sources, which is not to say anything about the mint of the electrum hekte.  The motif traveled as fast as a ship could sail, and occurs simultaneously all over the Aegean and most of the peninsula.
Pat L.
Here, Late Protocorinthian (and the dating of c. 635 should be insisted on) Chigi Olpe, now in the Villa Giulia in Rome, is the double-bodied sphinx (speaking of playing with combinations), showing just the most famous example of the tendrils 'growing' from the head--however the Greeks understood them.  This is from the original publication, by lithography, in Antike Denkmäler.  The Villa Giulia forbade photography; after all, it's only been published for a century and a quarter...
Below, in grayscale, and dated c. 650 (and maybe half a generation earlier than the Chigi Olpe) is a sphinx or siren (you can't tell) from Aegina, but it is Middle to Late Protocorinthian work.
These are just ones already on my computers.

Offline slokind

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #36 on: January 04, 2007, 03:59:50 am »
You are right about the dotted lines: as in engineering drawings (not to show movement!).  Those are very careful drawings, and it is impossible (as with making a flat map) to transfer figures from a curved and tapered surface to a flat, straight frieze without affecting the spacing of the figures and their relation to each other.
As for the Kiseleff olpe in the Wagner Museum in Würzburg, first that winged figure is a siren  (bird body) rather than a sphinx (feline body).  I have never seen it reproduced in color.  The vases are published in a catalogue that is too expensive to warrant your getting it for just one vase.  The siren is right on the front of the olpe, as you can see on Taf. 23 in the catalogue of the collection, edited by Erika Simon, Die Sammung Kiseleff, Teil II, Minoische und griechische Antiken, Martin-von-Wagner-Museum der Universität Würzburg.  Mainz, von Zabern, 1989.  I can send you a scan to see the whole vase-shape, if you wish, on an e-mail.  Or you can get it from Interlibrary Borrowing, if you have access.  The Kiseleff olpe dates from about 600 BCE or not much later.
Pat L.

Offline Kopperkid

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #37 on: January 06, 2007, 02:09:43 pm »
Yikes! This guy sold for $23,000

Pat-

Thanks again...I can't say it too many times..you're are providing some great information on the art side, that we (collectors) tend to ignore or not spend enough time understanding. I looked through that catalogue the day it showed up. I remember seeing that coin and forgot about it. I will add this guy to my study along with your background on the tendril. Here's another one I found that appears to have the same tendril.

Offline Kopperkid

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #38 on: January 06, 2007, 02:29:36 pm »
SInce this thread has migrated a llittle bit off topic and we are talking about tendrils I found a really interesting Caria, Kaunos coin in coinarchives.com
[DEAD LINK REMOVED BY ADMIN]
This image shows a the winged female with what appears to be tendrils! Or is this just my imagination reading things into the image. If it were just one item coming out of her head I might dismiss it as some headress ornament, but there are two.

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #39 on: January 06, 2007, 05:08:16 pm »
This coin is listed in Konuk's chapter in the Price "Essays" book, so if any discussion about the head dress or tendril is to be found it's likely to be there. 

Pul

Offline slokind

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #40 on: January 06, 2007, 08:19:28 pm »
The answer is found immediately loc. cit.,  p. 198 with illus. on pl. 47: "...and two scrolls curling up from the top of her head."  Now I need to find out why the figure has to be Iris, which is what he calls her.  His answer is on p. 222, and credits no less authority than Babelon, Traité.  I wonder about it, because Iris is rather uncommon c. 600 BCE (or at least so I have thought!), but Nike at this date in this form seems more unlikely still, and that was the alternative.
As for the scrolls, which are both a 'headdress' and an attribute, I think, of her supernatural nature, they can be found, just as wings are, on any figure that is not of the real and mortal kind.  I think their remote source might be one of the Egyptian crowns, via Phoenician decorative arts.  I might like to refrain from giving this winged divinity a specific name, barring specific evidence.
Pat L.

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #41 on: January 07, 2007, 12:04:28 am »
You raise a good point.  The obverse die style for this early Caunos coin is marked by the absence of a laurel wreath and caduceus, which can be found in the hands of the winged "Iris" on later coins in this series.  Both early and late issues in the series feature winged heels on the figures, in addition to the obvious wings on the back. 

I often thought that the association with Iris had something to do with the baetyl on the reverse of these coins, as it wouldn't be too unusual to feature a celestial demi-god with an object of supposed celestial origin/significance.  Also, with the later coins in the series, the caduceus is clearly a tip of the hands as to the "messenger" status of the figure.

Here's a similar example of the earlier coin, noted as being (O23/R20) in Konuk/Price.
 


Offline Kopperkid

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #42 on: January 07, 2007, 01:59:56 am »
OK, running with the Baetyl, than can we call her Kybele, Mother Earth or potnia theron? Using Pessinus as the city you have the temple to Kybele or Cybele. That would put you in the correct time frame circa 700 bce wouldn't it?

Just a thought at 1:00 in the morning.


Offline slokind

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #43 on: January 07, 2007, 02:10:39 am »
Mea culpa: I didn't look on a couple of plates further to those with kerykeion and wreath.  Those indeed justify Babelon's thinking of the angelos athanatôn, Iris.  Otherwise, 'kopperkid' certainly has done his homework; even I couldn't help thinking of the winged potniai thêrôn that he earlier posted, taken from the handles of the François Vase.  It is perfectly fair to think of continuity and use the more evolved images to help identify the earlier more generic ones.  Not that even the kerykeion quite proves that she is Iris--but do you really think she is as early as c. 700 BCE?  With that face?  I'd put her toward the end of the 7th c. BCE.  Pat L.

Offline Kopperkid

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #44 on: January 11, 2007, 02:10:17 pm »
Here's another example from Kaunos with the winged female with tendrils. The date provide for this image is 490-470 bc. Would you agree with the dating? Also, this one appears to have the winged shoes as well.

To be honest, I almost bought a coin very similar to this one from a dealer in California last year. Now that I have started my research I regret not getting it.

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #45 on: January 11, 2007, 03:48:29 pm »
Nice find.  On that example, it's clear that they are tendrils, and I would argue that they are insect-like.  Very similar to the antennae of a butterfly or moth.  I wonder if, in antiquity, Iris was associated with flying insects.  It's clear from Homer that the classical association is with the rainbow, but what if brightly colored butterflies or moths carried similar association.  If the tendrils were "scrolls," a term I associate with written language or information transfer, it seems that this usage would make more sense if the tendrils/scrolls were placed in her hand and not eminating from her head.

BTW - I'd kick myself too for not buying that coin.   ;D

Pul.

Offline Kopperkid

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #46 on: January 11, 2007, 05:10:09 pm »
I'm going to go with the idea that the engraver was copying the artistic styles of the time period rather than trying to link to a creature. If we look at location and religion in the area, I'm wondering if this winged woman (leaving the tendrils out) is not something out of Zorasternism (sorry on the spelling on that one). I base that on the persian rule at the time.

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #47 on: January 11, 2007, 06:30:16 pm »
Anything dated by type and style, as I gather this coin is (though find contexts may contribute), must be dated by its latest traits.  The griffin accords well with the beginning of the fifth century, IMO.  The tendrils by now have been repeated and repeated for generations.  Their origin was as a plant form (not a realistic one), which is why they are called tendrils.  Look back to those from Aegina and on the Chigi vase which I posted; they are about a century and a half earlier.  On the earliest headpieces there is a little lotus or palmette flower in between the roots of the tendrils (as on the vase-painting from Aegina).  It is not only how things look but how they came to look that way.  Pat L.

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #48 on: January 11, 2007, 09:45:49 pm »
Pat-

I'm gonna start calling you "The Source."
As to our griffin, he too, is wearing the palmette, just like the Aegean pottery. You have to look pretty close on this sample, but if you look in coinarchives.com you'll find some better samples.

Regards,
Ryan

p.s.: I did receive the Greeks OVerseas book and am 1/3 of the way through. My second book still isn't here..bumber..

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Re: Earliest Winged Coinage
« Reply #49 on: January 11, 2007, 11:14:11 pm »
But what is the purpose of the plant-based tendril (with or without lotus)?  Does it confer some sort of status or meaning or was it purely a decorative device of the period?

Pul.

 

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