There are differences of opinion to whom adorns the
obverse of this
type and many other
types depicting a female
bust. When studying this interesting Marathos coin i came across two published coins that were described as being either that of
Cleopatra II or
Artemis. One of these can be found in
HGC10 on page 56 No.200 and the other on
acsearch. My arguments against
Artemis are based upon her having a stronger Anatolian (
Asia Minor or modern day
Turkey) connection than that of Levantinian (
Levant or
Phoenicia). For the
bust to be that of
Cleopatra II i would say that age plays a big
part in discounting her from this series, she would have been at the time of minting fourteen to sixteen years of age. One could also theorize that her mother
Cleopatra I could have been a likely contender but she
had died six years previously, long before this series went into production.
I´m not discounting the fact that the overlords or rulers of the time would have wanted their likenesses on Marathenian coins of this period, the hard
part is proving that this is the case. This leaves for now one alternative, we know through ancient writings that the Phoenicians worshiped one female deity in particular and that was
Astarte the goddess of war,
fertility and sexuality. She is for me an obvious candidate, so inevitably and until further evidence suggests otherwise i will continue to attribute this
type and others to that of
Astarte.
The remaining coins i have been able to track down describe the
obverse as being that of a female with laureate and draped
bust (known specimens total 18 coins).
Moving on, i did manage to find a possible die match for my coin. They both appear to have the same die faults which i have marked with a white arrows, see attached images showing my coin left with die match on the right. Please give me your opinions, i would like to know if my imagination as got the better of me.
Please follow links provided to see my coin in its entirety and for a fascinating close up of
Nike´s
face.
https://phoeniciancoins.wordpress.com/2015/08/05/differences-of-opinion/Edit - 8 April 2020: The mintmark between Nike and era date has now been identified has mem and not nun.
