DOI issue:
Artykuły / Articles
DOI article:Van Alfen, Peter G.: Problems in the political economy of archaic greek coinage
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22230#0028
PETER VAN ALFEN
closer examination, in order to see how each group arrives at such conclusions,
and whether we can detect and compare institutional differences and cultures in
the numismatic record. We also need to be aware, again as the story of the Lincoln
cent reminds us, that individual elites can have outsized effects on outcomes, even
in democracies.
Archaic elites were often members of traditional aristocratic families, who by
their wealth and prestige lay claim to power; they might also have been “middling”
individuals who held key positions in civic institutions. In either case, the power
they held could be disproportionate, inciting them to act in ways that introduced
additional complications in bargaining over coin production. Individual elites act-
ing out may have left their mark in the numismatic record. For example, Robert
Wallace40 has confirmed the reading of the inscription WALWET (Alyattes) on
early some early Lydian electram coins (PI. 3, Fig. 13), as well as KUKALIM
(PI. 3, Fig. 14), whom he identifies as a royal personage, and [,]LATE[.]-, who
need not be a royal person, but who may have struck his coins at a “branch mint.”
Wallace assumes, as most would viewing these issues from the perspective of post-
archaic practice, that permission to mint would have to be sought from the head
of State, i.e., Alyattes, who presumably owned the right to coin. But need we as-
sume this was the case? Might KUKALIM and [,]LATE[.]have simply produced
parallel issues on their own authority, no less than the otherwise unknown Phanes
of Ephesus appears to have done with his series of signed issues (PI 3, Fig. 15)?41
The iconography of other archaic coins might also reflect dispersed rather
than centralized authority. There are hundreds of archaic electrum and silver coins
in public and private collections that remain catalogued under “uncertain” attri-
butions.42 Some designs are rudimentary, nothing morę than geometrie pattems or
striations, whiłe others are so common, e.g., lions, panthers, bulls, etc., that they
fail to signaf from our wider (pan-Hellenie) perspective at least, any individuality
associated with separate civic mints. Within the context of a narrower network of
users, each of these designs may have served the function of identifying the is-
40 R. WALLACE, “KUKALIM, WALWET, and the Artemision deposit”, [in:] P.G. VAN ALFEN (ed.),
Agoranomia: studies in money and exchangepresented to John H. Kroll, New York 2006, pp. 37—48.
41 J.H. KROLL, “Don’t forget the dynastai”, [in:] H. GITLER, K. KONUK, C. LORBER, White Gold,
fortheoming, discusses archaic elite dynastai in Asia Minor who might also have coined. For the Phanes coinage
see F. REBUFFAT, „ Phanes: ąuestions sans responses ”, [in:] O. CASABONNE (ed.), Mechanismes et innova-
tions monetaires dans l'Anatolie achemenide. Numismatiąue et histoire. Actes de la Table Ronde Internationale
d'Istanbul, 22-21 mai 1997, Paris 2002, pp. 225-233 and K. KONUK, “Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt”, [in:]
W.E. METCALF (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage, Oxford 2012, p.47).
42 I have identified roughly 250 discrete series of unattributed early electrum coins. But sińce we lack
a complete corpus of early electrum coinage, verifying the accuracy of this count at the moment poses difficulties.
Nevertheless, I believe it would be safe to say that for early electrum there are certainly morę than 100 unattrib-
uted series, and probably morę than 200. For unattributed archaic silver issues from Asia Minor see SNG Kayhan
and the Jonathan Rosen collection published by the ANS in 1983.
closer examination, in order to see how each group arrives at such conclusions,
and whether we can detect and compare institutional differences and cultures in
the numismatic record. We also need to be aware, again as the story of the Lincoln
cent reminds us, that individual elites can have outsized effects on outcomes, even
in democracies.
Archaic elites were often members of traditional aristocratic families, who by
their wealth and prestige lay claim to power; they might also have been “middling”
individuals who held key positions in civic institutions. In either case, the power
they held could be disproportionate, inciting them to act in ways that introduced
additional complications in bargaining over coin production. Individual elites act-
ing out may have left their mark in the numismatic record. For example, Robert
Wallace40 has confirmed the reading of the inscription WALWET (Alyattes) on
early some early Lydian electram coins (PI. 3, Fig. 13), as well as KUKALIM
(PI. 3, Fig. 14), whom he identifies as a royal personage, and [,]LATE[.]-, who
need not be a royal person, but who may have struck his coins at a “branch mint.”
Wallace assumes, as most would viewing these issues from the perspective of post-
archaic practice, that permission to mint would have to be sought from the head
of State, i.e., Alyattes, who presumably owned the right to coin. But need we as-
sume this was the case? Might KUKALIM and [,]LATE[.]have simply produced
parallel issues on their own authority, no less than the otherwise unknown Phanes
of Ephesus appears to have done with his series of signed issues (PI 3, Fig. 15)?41
The iconography of other archaic coins might also reflect dispersed rather
than centralized authority. There are hundreds of archaic electrum and silver coins
in public and private collections that remain catalogued under “uncertain” attri-
butions.42 Some designs are rudimentary, nothing morę than geometrie pattems or
striations, whiłe others are so common, e.g., lions, panthers, bulls, etc., that they
fail to signaf from our wider (pan-Hellenie) perspective at least, any individuality
associated with separate civic mints. Within the context of a narrower network of
users, each of these designs may have served the function of identifying the is-
40 R. WALLACE, “KUKALIM, WALWET, and the Artemision deposit”, [in:] P.G. VAN ALFEN (ed.),
Agoranomia: studies in money and exchangepresented to John H. Kroll, New York 2006, pp. 37—48.
41 J.H. KROLL, “Don’t forget the dynastai”, [in:] H. GITLER, K. KONUK, C. LORBER, White Gold,
fortheoming, discusses archaic elite dynastai in Asia Minor who might also have coined. For the Phanes coinage
see F. REBUFFAT, „ Phanes: ąuestions sans responses ”, [in:] O. CASABONNE (ed.), Mechanismes et innova-
tions monetaires dans l'Anatolie achemenide. Numismatiąue et histoire. Actes de la Table Ronde Internationale
d'Istanbul, 22-21 mai 1997, Paris 2002, pp. 225-233 and K. KONUK, “Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt”, [in:]
W.E. METCALF (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage, Oxford 2012, p.47).
42 I have identified roughly 250 discrete series of unattributed early electrum coins. But sińce we lack
a complete corpus of early electrum coinage, verifying the accuracy of this count at the moment poses difficulties.
Nevertheless, I believe it would be safe to say that for early electrum there are certainly morę than 100 unattrib-
uted series, and probably morę than 200. For unattributed archaic silver issues from Asia Minor see SNG Kayhan
and the Jonathan Rosen collection published by the ANS in 1983.