Summary Analysis

Coin catalogue sections:	Anemourion, Aphrodisias, Holmoi, Kelenderis, Nagidos, Pseudo-Kelenderis Mints
Coin corpus datasets:	Anemourion, Aphrodisias, Staters, Holmoi, Group 1, Holmoi, Group 2, Kelenderis, Staters – Group 1, Kelenderis, Staters – Group 2, Kelenderis, Staters – Group 3, Nagidos, Staters – Group 1, Nagidos, Staters – Group 2, Nagidos, Staters – Group 3, Pseudo-Kelenderis Mints, Aspendos, staters, Tarsos, staters after c. 388 BC

Summary

The subject of this analysis is a comparison of the weights of pre-Hellenistic and early Hellenistic staters from the Aspendos mint and pre-Hellenistic staters from the Tarsos mint during the reigns of the satraps Tiribazos to Balakros with the pre-Hellenistic staters of the mints of Cilicia Trachea. The results indicate a possibility that different weight standards were simultaneously used in these areas at least for part of the pre-Hellenistic period. Moreover, it seems that the weight standard did not necessarily decrease over time, i.e., that the relative chronology of coin types cannot be inferred from a decrease in weight standard alone. However, it is necessary to take into account that some observed differences in the weights of coins may be due to other reasons than different weight standards, such as different seigniorage or different metal quality causing different weight loss due to physico-chemical processes acting on preserved coins over time. In addition, for reliable conclusions, it is necessary to analyze also the production of Tarsos before 388 BC and to enlarge the analyzed data sets to increase their representativeness.

Analysis

The Aspendos staters are divided into early issues with a warrior on the obverse and a triskeles on the reverse, and later issues with two wrestlers on the obverse and a slinger on the reverse, with these later issues further divided into five series according to Tekin 1997. The Tarsos satrapal staters are divided by individual Cilician satraps, who are represented by the major coin types for which sufficient data are available (see Section Tarsos, staters after c. 388 BC in the Coin Corpus). An overview of the analysed groups of Aspendos and Tarsos coins is given in Table 1.

Mint	Group		Approximate dating
Aspendos	Warrior / Triskeles		465 – 430 BC
	Wrestlers / Slinger	Tekin 1997, Series 1	420 – 410 BC
		Tekin 1997, Series 2	415 – 400 BC
		Tekin 1997, Series 3	400 – 380 BC
		Tekin 1997, Series 4	380/75 – 330/25 BC
		Tekin 1997, Series 5	330/25 – 310/250 BC
Tarsos	Tiribazos		388 – 380 BC
	Pharnabazos		380 – 374/3 BC
	Datames (Tarkumuwa)		384 – 361/0
	Mazaios		361/0 – 334
	Balakros		333 – 323 BC

Table 1: Analyzed groups of coins of Aspendos and Tarsos

Box plots1 of the Aspendos staters are shown in Figure 1. This chart indicates that the coins were minted in the same weight standard (perhaps with the exception of Series 4, which suggests a slight decrease). However, Series 5 is minted at a significantly lower weight standard. In addition, the greater weight volatility and unclear minting time range of Series 5 suggests that it may not have been a homogeneous series, but that there may have been a further lowering of the weight standard during this period.

Figure 1: Aspendos, box plots

Box plots of the Tarsos staters are shown in Figure 2. In the case of the staters minted under Tiribazos, we can observe lower weights of the coins than during the reign of the other satraps, and it seems as if the highest weight standard was used by the last satraps Mazaios and Balakros.

Figure 2: Tarsos, box plots

Pre-Hellenistic staters of Cilicia Trachea can be divided into the following groups (see the relevant catalogue sections and, for Kelenderis and Nagidos, also their weight analyses):

Holmoi:	Group 1:	Type 1;
	Group 2:	Type 2.
Kelenderis:	Group 1:	Types 1.1–3;
	Group 2:	Types 2.1–12;
	Group 3A:	Types 3.1–3 and 3.7–12;
	Group 3B:	Types 3.13–14;
	Group 3C:	Types 3.4–6 and 3.15–17.
Nagidos:	Group A:	Group 1 except Type 1.5e;
	Group B:	Group 2 except Type 2.8;
	Group C:	Group 3 with Types 1.5e and 2.8.
Pseudo-Kelenderis:	Group 1:	Type 1;
	Group 2:	Type 2.

According to Section Staters of Cilicia Trachea, these coins can be divided in terms of the similarity of their weights into two large groups, which probably correspond to the two phases of the weight standard development in pre-Hellenistic Cilicia Trachea:

Phase 1:	Holmoi, Group 1; Kelenderis, Groups 1, 2, 3A and 3B; Nagidos, Groups A and B; Pseudo-Kelenderis, Group 1.
Phase 2:	Anemourion; Aphrodisias; Holmoi, Group 2; Kelenderis, Group 3C; Nagidos; Group C; Pseudo-Kelenderis, Group 2.

Figure 3 shows all the mints of Cilicia Trachea and the mints of Aspendos and Tarsos together. In Figure 4, the Cilicia Trachea coins are aggregated into the above two phases. For better clarity, on both charts the background of the box plots for Aspendos is light red and for Tarsos light green. The basic statistic characteristics of all these coin groups are presented in Table 2 (Std. Dev. denotes the standard deviation, IQR the interquartile range and CV the coefficient of variation).

Figure 3: Box plots of all analysed mints

Figure 4: Box plots of all analysed mints with Cilicia Trachea aggregated into two phases

Mint	Count	Mean	Median	Std. Dev.	IQR	CV
Anemourion	2	9.68	9.68	0.19	0.27	0.02
Aphrodisias	5	9.94	9.94	0.05	0.09	0.01
Holmoi, Group 1	9	10.55	10.66	0.22	0.18	0.02
Holmoi, Group 2	6	10.04	10.04	0.14	0.16	0.01
Kelenderis, Group 1	13	10.73	10.78	0.23	0.21	0.02
Kelenderis, Group 2	230	10.73	10.75	0.10	0.13	0.01
Kelenderis, Group 3A	182	10.63	10.68	0.24	0.18	0.02
Kelenderis, Group 3B	15	10.47	10.46	0.20	0.37	0.02
Kelenderis, Group 3C	36	9.92	9.98	0.31	0.19	0.03
Nagidos, Group A	123	10.52	10.55	0.22	0.26	0.02
Nagidos, Group B	241	10.62	10.66	0.19	0.17	0.02
Nagidos, Group C	209	9.94	9.99	0.27	0.30	0.03
Pseudo-Kelenderis, Group 1	16	10.61	10.70	0.29	0.33	0.03
Pseudo-Kelenderis, Group 2	1	10.04	10.04	0.00	0.00	0.00
Cilicia Trachea, Phase 1	829	10.64	10.68	0.20	0.19	0.02
Cilicia Trachea, Phase 2	259	9.94	9.99	0.27	0.28	0.03
Aspendos, Warrior	63	10.88	10.89	0.12	0.15	0.01
Aspendos, Tekin 1	19	10.79	10.85	0.19	0.21	0.02
Aspendos, Tekin 2	57	10.87	10.89	0.10	0.09	0.01
Aspendos, Tekin 3	51	10.82	10.87	0.23	0.12	0.02
Aspendos, Tekin 4	96	10.74	10.79	0.26	0.23	0.02
Aspendos, Tekin 5	69	10.25	10.37	0.55	0.46	0.05
Tarsos, Tiribazos	35	10.15	10.22	0.41	0.55	0.04
Tarsos, Pharnabazos	87	10.52	10.64	0.38	0.29	0.04
Tarsos, Datames	104	10.43	10.50	0.33	0.45	0.03
Tarsos, Mazaios	102	10.68	10.75	0.34	0.32	0.03
Tarsos, Balakros	62	10.73	10.82	0.31	0.25	0.03

Table 2: Basic descriptive statistics

These graphs and Table 2 allow the following observations in terms of mean and median weights:

1. It seems that staters falling into Phase 1 of the Cilicia Trachea coinage were slightly lighter than the Aspendos staters of the warrior/triskeles type and Tekin’s Series 1–4.
2. The weights of staters falling into Phase 2 of the Cilicia Trachea coinage were considerably lower than all Aspendos issues.
3. The weights of the Tarsos staters minted under Tiribazos were both lower than under the following satraps and lower the Aspendos staters of the warrior/triskeles type and Tekin’s Series 1–4. The weights of Tiribazos’s staters paradoxically correspond to the late Aspendos staters of Tekin’s Series 5.
4. The weights of the Tarsos staters were highest under the last two satraps Mazaios and Balakros, and the weights of their coins are comparable to Tekin’s Series 4.

These observations raise the question of whether Cilicia Trachea and Pamphylia used the same Persian weight standard, or whether multiple weight standards were used simultaneously in these areas at least for part of the pre-Hellenistic period. Moreover, the observations regarding Tarsos indicate that coin weights did not necessarily decrease over time, i.e., that the relative chronology of coin types cannot be inferred from a decrease in weight standard alone. In all these considerations, however, it is necessary to take into account that some observed differences stated above may be due to other reasons, such different seigniorage or different metal quality causing different weight loss due to physico-chemical processes acting on preserved coins over time. In addition, for reliable conclusions, it is necessary to analyze also the production of Tarsos before 388 BC and to enlarge the analyzed data sets to increase their representativeness.