Nomos 18

CILICIA. Tarsos or an Uncertain Mint in Southwestern Asia Minor. Circa 455-400 BC. Stater (Silver, 20 mm, 10.87 g, 6 h). Crenelated city walls with three towers. Rev. Forepart of bull to right; at lower right, ankh; all within incuse square. CNG 109, 2018, 190 (same dies), otherwise, unpublished save for auction appearances. An interesting and rare coin. Struck from rather worn dies, otherwise, good very fine.

The attribution of this coin to Tarsos is based on the ankh, which has been identified as the city's symbol. However, not everyone agrees with this and, thus, many prefer to see the coin as coming from an as yet unidentified mint in SW Asia Minor. Curiously enough, scholars up to the mid 20th century were always willing to make attributions based only on intuition and experience; thus, they could make mistakes (as with Sir Arthur Evans' reconstructions at Knossos). They surely believed that even mistakes could lead to better understanding. Nowadays, however, many scholars are so unwilling to take any kind of a stand that if a theory seems to have only a 1% chance of being wrong, their idea is to call it uncertain.