Nomos 19

PAMPHYLIA. Side. Circa 460-430 BC. Stater (Silver, 21 mm, 10.77 g, 12 h), c. 460-450. Pomegranate on a stem with a leaf on each side. Rev. Helmeted head of Athena to right, wearing crested Attic helmet; to right, dolphin swimming upwards. SNG France - (but cf. 625). SNG von Aulock -. Double-struck reverse and overstruck on an Aspendos stater, otherwise, good very fine.

Until now, this series has been dated to between 479 and 460 BC, primarily because of the particularly late-Archaic-looking head of Athena on the reverse. The present coin requires to revise that chronology since it is definitely overstruck on a stater of Aspendos, dated independently to c. 465 - 430! On the coin's obverse the undertype is that of a helmeted warrior striding to left, holding a spear and shield (traces of the warrior's body are visible on the pomegranate when the coin is inverted); on the reverse are traces of the undertype of a triskeles in an incuse square (one leg is visible on the cheek of Athena). If we accept that the earlier and cruder types of the Aspendian series with the warrior and the triskeles have to be dated to c. 465-440, the coin of Side we have here, which is stylistically very close to all the other known examples of this early type, cannot be dated before 460 BC. Thus we can suggest that this series ought to be dated to 460-450 BC; thus, we have to downdate the beginning of the next period of the coinage of Side.