A Lydian Text on an Electrum Coin

Abstract

By the kindness of the owner, Mr. Arthur Bernard Cook, an inscribed electrum coin of the well-known ‘lion’ type is depicted in Fig. 1; its inscription, which exists only in part on the examples in other cabinets, appears to be complete. In the list below, the Keeper of the Department of Coins in the British Museum describes the specimens known in various sizes—Mr. Cook's being No. 5—and shows that the series has been attributed either to Lydia or to an Ionian city. The inscription seems to have been originally the same on all these specimens; it was, however, omitted from the collection of texts in Lydian script (Sardis, VI. ii. p. vii, note 1), because the uncertainty of the reading on the coins then available made its Lydian character doubtful and precluded the transcription of a trustworthy copy. Had Mr. Cook's coin been known to me in 1924, I should have included it in that small corpus as ‘No. 52.’