ANote on a Samarian Coin-Type

Abstract

The article focuses on a Samarian issue showing on the obverse a head in a tiara
(kyrbasia) and the forepart of a horse on the reverse (Meshorer and Qedar 1999:97, Nos.
75–76). The forerunner for the types under discussion must be sought among issues
produced by different Achemenid officials in northwestern Asia Minor (Mysia, Troas),
where coins of the same or similar types were relatively widespread in the fourth century
BCE. It is probable that the Samarian issuing authority consciously chose iconographic
types recalling the Achemenid aristocratic ethos with which the local community was
presumably familiar.