Early Lycian Dynasts Silver Stater: Boar and Tortoise

Historical Context

During the late Archaic and early Classical periods, the mountainous region of Lycia on the southwestern coast of Anatolia functioned within the sphere of the Achaemenid Persian Empire following the campaigns of the general Harpagos in the 540s BCE. Rather than establishing direct satrapal administration across every valley, the Persian central administration permitted local oligarchic houses and dynasts to retain substantial internal autonomy. Autonomous rulers operated from entrenched regional centers, including Xanthos (Lycian Arñna), Limyra (Zemuri), Pinara (Pillewi), and Tlos (Tlawa).

These local dynasts maintained regional military forces, erected distinctive funerary monuments such as pillar tombs, and issued their own silver coinages. Early Lycian monetary production, beginning around 520 BCE, was characterized by anonymous, anepigraphic coinages dominated by zoomorphic emblems. The wild boar (Sus scrofa) served as one of the most prominent devices across western Lycia, likely functioning as a symbol of martial ferocity and regional identity.

By the opening decades of the fifth century BCE, earlier crude punch reverses were replaced by organized pictorial reverse dies set within raised beaded frames and sunken punches. The pairing of a full-bodied boar with a dorsal view of a tortoise forms one of the most substantial transitional issues of the region. This series marks the bridge between the earliest anepigraphic silver staters and the appearance of named dynastic issues around the middle of the fifth century BCE under figures such as Kuprlli.

Obverse: Iconographic Composition

The obverse of the specimen catalogued under Cleveland Museum of Art accession number 1916.996 (part record 1916.996.a) depicts a complete wild boar standing and advancing to the right.

The animal is shown in full profile with its head lowered toward the exergue in a foraging or aggressive posture. Along the dorsal ridge of the spine runs an erect crest of bristles, rendered in fine, closely spaced vertical incisions. The muscular mass of the shoulder, flank, and hindquarters is softly modelled in late Archaic style, descending into slender lower limbs that terminate in clearly delineated cloven hooves. The short tail curls upward tightly at the rump.

The boar stands upon a continuous horizontal ground line formed by a neat row of small raised beads (grenetis). The surrounding field is completely open, lacking any dynastic monograms, countermarks, or subsidiary symbols.

Obverse: Epigraphy and Inscriptions

The obverse die is entirely anepigraphic. No alphabetic inscriptions, epichoric Lycian letters, numerals, or personal marks appear on the body of the animal, in the field above, or along the exergual ground line.

Reverse: Iconographic Composition

The reverse die (Cleveland Museum of Art part record 1916.996.b) presents a dorsal view of a chelonian, traditionally identified in numismatic literature as a tortoise or turtle.

The carapace is rendered in high relief with distinct structural segmentation, showing an elevated central vertebral ridge flanked by symmetrical lateral costal plates. A rounded, blunt head projects forward from the anterior margin of the shell. Two broad forelimbs extend outward and downward in an active crawling posture, matched posteriorly by two splayed hindlimbs and a short, pointed tail.

The creature is framed within a square border composed of evenly spaced, raised pellets. The entire composition is sunken deeply into the fabric of the flan within a square incuse punch, characteristic of late Archaic two-die minting where an upper square punch drove the heated silver planchet into an anvil-mounted lower obverse die.

Reverse: Epigraphy and Inscriptions

The reverse is entirely anepigraphic. There are no civic ethnics, dynastic initials, magistrates' signatures, or control letters either within the beaded frame surrounding the tortoise or along the inner walls of the incuse punch.

Typology and Documented Variants

Anepigraphic staters featuring the boar and tortoise pairing represent a well-defined series in early Lycian numismatics. George Francis Hill categorized the type within "Series II" of his classification of early Lycian coinage, dating the animal issues broadly to c. 500–460 BCE. Modern private collection surveys, such as that of Wilhelm Müseler, catalog the boar advancing right paired with a tortoise under Period II (nos. 30–31). Documented museum and collection parallels include specimens in the Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum Deutschland: Sammlung v. Aulock (nos. 4072–4074), the Danish National Museum (SNG Copenhagen Supp. 385–387), and the Falghera collection (no. 48).

Documented varieties within the general class include:

• Boar Right / Tortoise (Principal Type): Full-bodied wild boar advancing right on a beaded ground line; reverse tortoise dorsal view in beaded square within an incuse square. Represented by CMA 1916.996, BMC Lycia pp. 4–5, nos. 17–21, and Müseler Period II, 30–31.
• Boar Left / Tortoise Variant: Obverse depicting the boar advancing left with lowered head; reverse identical in design. Recorded in Müseler Period II, nos. 32–33, and SNG von Aulock 4071.
• Fractional Issues: Third-staters (trites or tetrobols, ~3.00–3.20 g) typically depicting the forepart (protome) of a boar on the obverse paired with the tortoise reverse within a beaded frame.

Metrological Context: Staters of this series were struck to a local weight standard generally designated as the Lycian standard (ranging typically from 8.80 g to 9.55 g in well-preserved examples). The Cleveland Museum of Art object record reports a diameter of 2 cm (20 mm) and a weight of 9.266 g (0.33 oz.). These are institutional catalogue measurements, not independent weighing by TerraNumis. Die axis and metal fineness are not reported. A general series weight standard is not a substitute for the recorded specimen measurement.

Scholarly Debates and Attribution Limitations

Scholarly study of the boar and tortoise staters centers on several persistent numismatic and historical questions:

1. Issuing Authority and Mint Attribution: Nineteenth-century scholars, including Ernest Babelon, often attributed early anonymous animal staters to a central mint at Xanthos acting under overall Persian hegemony. George Francis Hill emphasized that without inscriptions or civic emblems, these coins cannot be securely tied to a single city. In her study of early Lycian coinage, Novella Vismara designated this class as part of "Protodynastic Group B," emphasizing regional dynastic usage rather than individual civic identity. The prevailing consensus classifies the issue as an uncertain Lycian mint produced under anonymous early dynasts. Direct attribution to later historical dynasts known from inscriptions, such as Kuprlli or Kybernis, is unsupported by the physical evidence of the coins.

2. The Tortoise Device and Relations with Aegina: Early antiquarian studies occasionally posited that the presence of a chelonian pointed to direct Aeginetan colonization or political authority in Lycia, given the dominance of Aegina's silver coinage in the Archaic Mediterranean. Colin M. Kraay definitively refuted this hypothesis on metrological grounds: the Lycian stater standard (~8.80–9.55 g) is completely incompatible with the heavier Aeginetan stater standard (~12.2 g). Numismatists interpret the device either as an indigenous animal motif - reflecting local wildlife such as the marginated land tortoise (Testudo graeca) or coastal sea turtles (Caretta caretta) - or as a familiar commercial device adopted to facilitate trade in Aegean and Levantine maritime networks.

3. Chronological Boundaries and Hoard Evidence: The Cleveland Museum of Art retains a catalogue date of 500–460 BCE. Notably, the Asyut Hoard of Egypt (buried c. 475 BCE) contained early Lycian coins with boar foreparts and primitive incuse patterns, but entirely lacked the developed boar/tortoise staters. Overstriking evidence documented in studies of dynastic coinage shows that boar/tortoise staters frequently served as undertypes for the early issues of Kuprlli (whose coinage began c. 470–460 BCE). This sequence indicates that the production of boar/tortoise staters was concentrated in the first half of the fifth century BCE, likely extending down to the 460s or 450s BCE.

References

1. The Cleveland Museum of Art: Stater: Boar (obverse), Tortoise (reverse), Accession 1916.996. Object 1916.996, part records 1916.996.a and 1916.996.b
2. Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Lycia, Pamphylia, and Pisidia. pp. xi, 4–5, nos. 17–21 (Series II)
3. The coinages of the Lycian dynasts Kheriga, Kherei and Erbbina. Acta Archaeologica 47 (1976), pp. 47–90
4. Archaic and Classical Greek Coins. pp. 269–274
5. Archaic Greek Silver Coinage: The "Asyut" Hoard. pp. 98–101, nos. 749–751
6. The Classification of Lycian Coins before Alexander the Great. Jahrbuch für Numismatik und Geldgeschichte 14 (1964), pp. 65–76