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Gold croeseid twelfth-stater. Obverse. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College) -
Gold croeseid twelfth-stater. Reverse. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College) -
Group of three croeseid coins from sector MMS (one gold, two silver); obverse. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College) -
Group of three croeseid coins from Sector MMS (one gold, two silver); reverse. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College) -
Group of three croeseid coins (one gold, two silver) from sector MMS (placed on finger for scale); obverse. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College) -
Group of three croeseid coins (one gold, two silver) from sector MMS (placed on finger for scale); reverse. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College) -
Group of three croeseid coins (one gold and two silver) from sector MMS; obverse. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College) -
Group of three croeseid coins (one gold and two silver) from sector MMS; reverse. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Gold Croeseid Twelfth-Stater
The Lydians and their World
(2010)
Cat. 27
- Date
- Second quarter of 6th c BC, Lydian
- Museum
- Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, 19267
- Museum Inventory No.
- 19267
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- 2002.0002
- Material
- Gold
- Object Type
- Coin
- Coin Denomination
- Twelfth stater
- Coin Mint
- Sardis
- Issuers
- Officina
- Has Mint Mark
- Has Control Mark
- Has Monogram
- Has Countermark
- Hoard
- Monograph 13 Catalog No.
- 2
- Site
- Sardis
- Sector
- MMS
- Trench
- MMS-III 02.2
- Locus
- MMS-III 02.2 Locus 2
- Description
- Gold croeseid twelfth-stater. Obverse: confronted foreparts of lion and bull. Reverse: single incuse punch. Weight 0.88 g, diameter 7.2 mm.
- Comments
- Found under the floor of the “recess” on the outside of the Lydian fortification, with coin No. 30 (Greenewalt, “Introduction,”; Cahill, “City of Sardis”). The recess was filled with destruction debris, and contained two skeletons (No. 210 and another), weapons (helmet No. 211), and a third coin, No. 31. That destruction can be dated with confidence to the middle of the sixth century BC, when Cyrus captured Sardis (Cahill, “The Persian Sack of Sardis”), thus proving that these coins were minted by the Lydians before the Persian sack, rather than under the Persians as some had argued.
This affirms the statement of Herodotus (1.94) that coins minted in pure gold and pure silver were invented by the Lydians; the invention is generally attributed to King Croesus, after an initial period when coins were minted in electrum, like Nos. 17-26 (see Kroll, “The Coins of Sardis”). Gold croeseids were minted on two different weight standards: an earlier, heavier standard based on a stater weight of 10.7 g, and a later, lighter standard based on a stater weight of 8.06 g; this coin belongs to the earlier, heavier type, while the gold staters from the hoard discovered in 1922 (Nos. 28.1-28.2) were minted on the lighter standard.
- See Also
- Kroll, “Coins of Sardis”; Cahill, “City of Sardis”; Cahill, “Persian Sack”. See also: M13 Cat. 2.0001
- Bibliography
- Cahill and Kroll 2005
- Author
- NDC