Getty Museum

Double Siglos

Date

about 379–373 B.C.

Medium

Silver

Culture

Near Eastern, Achaemenid (Persian)

Department

Coins

Institution

Getty Museum

A woman's head on the front and a warrior's head on the back decorate this coin, a double siglos, or shekel, in Persian. The wide-eyed woman has been called a goddess, but solely on the fact that her head was copied from the head of the Greek water-goddess Arethusa on coins minted about a century earlier in the Greek city of Syracuse, in Sicily. Her true identity remains uncertain. The warrior on the back wears an Athenian helmet, and he looks like a commander. Inscribed in Aramaic behind the head is the name of Pharnabazus, who was the Persian governor of northwest Anatolia about 408-373 B.C. The coin probably was issued in Tarsus, a Greek city in Cilicia (southeast Anatolia), where the region's most important mint was located. Only four complete letters of Pharnabazus' name and a bit of a fifth are preserved; a piece carved out of the coin has obliterated the first two letters. Perhaps the head is Pharnabazus' portrait. Alternatively, it could be the head of the Greek war-god Ares.

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