Alexander III (Alexander the Great) coinage was not confined to a single minting center—his monetary system spread across a vast network of cities, reflecting both imperial control and local administration.
Key mints such as #Tarsus, #Amphipolis, #Sidon, and #Sardes played an important role in producing his silver and gold issues during and after his campaigns.
Across these cities, Alexander issued coins on a massive scale—so extensively that his coinage system can be identified as imperial in reach but local in production. In fact, he effectively “multiplied” mints across his empire, allowing many cities to strike coins under his authority rather than centralizing production in one location.
Most of these coins share a common design:
* Obverse: Herakles (or idealized Alexander) wearing a lion skin
* Reverse: Zeus seated on a throne holding an eagle and scepter
What helps historians distinguish the origin of each issue is not the main design, but the small variations in control marks, symbols, and inscriptions placed around Zeus on the reverse. Each city used its own identifying marks—mint symbols, monograms, or local abbreviations—allowing modern numismatists to trace coins back to specific production centers.
So while the imagery remained politically unified, the reverse side acts like a coded signature system, revealing whether a coin came from Tarsus, Amphipolis, Sidon, Sardes, or any of the many other mints operating under Alexander’s expanding economic network. #Alexander_the_Great
Sardes, Darios I To Xerxes II, 485 To 420 BCE Silver Siglos Coin Type IIIb, Achaemenid Empire, Currency Daric. Coin Has Punching. Carradice Type IIIb, A/B
Dimensions Diameter 19mm, Weight 5.46 Grams. All measurements are approximate.
Obverse
Persian king or hero right in kneeling position with quiver, holding a spear in his right hand and the bow with his left.
Sat, Jan 12 - I visited the ancient Roman city of Sardes today for the first time. (Information about the city is under this post.) It consisted of the Gymnasium with the remains of many Byzantine shops including restaurants and painting shops, a public pool, tombs, and a Synagogue. It was truly refreshing to see the place overall, but what I adored about the visit was the fact that you could imagine and experience the feeling of what it was like to be living in an ancient city, as it was empty because of the weather conditions. No voices, no noise, no motion, just the smell and the air of this ancient place. (I bet Henry Winter would die for it.) The Temple of Artemis was also close and I went there as well. I'll publish the pictures from the Synagogue and the Temple next if you want to check them out.
Sardis (/ˈsɑːrdɪs/ SAR-diss) or Sardes (/ˈsɑːrdiːs/SAR-de ess; Lydian: 𐤳𐤱𐤠𐤭𐤣, romanized: Sfard; Ancient Greek: Σάρδεις, romanized: Sárdeis; Old Persian: Sparda) was an ancient city best known as the capital of the Lydian Empire. After the fall of the Lydian Empire, it became the capital of the Persian satrapy of Lydia and later a major center of Hellenistic and Byzantine culture. It is now an active archaeological site in modern-day Turkey, in Manisa Province near Sart.
In 334 BC, Sardis was conquered by Alexander the Great. The city was surrendered without a fight, the local satrap having been killed during the Persian defeat at Granikos. After taking power, Alexander restored earlier Lydian customs and laws. For the next two centuries, the city passed between Hellenistic rulers including Antigonus Monophthalmos, Lysimachus, the Seleucids, and the Attalids. It was besieged by Seleucus I in 281 BC and by Antiochus III in 215-213 BC, but neither succeeded at breaching the acropolis, regarded as the strongest fortified place in the world. The city sometimes served as a royal residence, but was itself governed by an assembly.
In this era, the city took on a strong Greek character. The Greek language replaced the Lydian language in most inscriptions, and major buildings were constructed in Greek architectural styles to meet the needs of Greek cultural institutions. These new buildings included a prytaneion, gymnasium, theater, hippodrome, and the massive Temple of Artemis still visible to modern visitors. Jews were settled at Sardis by the Hellenistic king Antiochos III, where they built the Sardis Synagogue and formed a community that continued for much of Late Antiquity.
In 129 BC, Sardis passed to the Romans, under whom it continued its prosperity and political importance as part of the province of Asia. The city received three neocorate honors and was granted ten million sesterces as well as a temporary tax exemption to help it recover after a devastating earthquake in 17 AD.
Sardis had an early Christian community and is referred to in the New Testament as one of the seven churches of Asia. In the Book of Revelation, Jesus refers to Sardians as not finishing what they started, being about image rather than substance.
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The Temple of Artemis, (334 a.C.) Sardes, Turkey, the main deity of the city, considered one of the largest Greek temples, with a size that was twice the Athenian Parthenon; it was the fourth largest temple of the Ionic order of antiquity.
Günümüzde Manisa ili Salihli ilçesi Sart Mahallesi sınırları içinde yer alan Artemis Tapınağı görülmesi gereken yerler arasında.. #manisa #sardes #artemis #artemistemple #temple #tapinak #sanat #art #sanattarihi #arthistory #history #arkeoloji #arkeology #mitoloji #mitology #tmolos #gymnasium #kasaba #nature #turkey #turkish #lidya #photography #vsco #vscocam https://www.instagram.com/p/Butllpbn9xN/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=sp8gqusglvd1
