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UNIQUE: The only surviving gold coin of Alexander the Great while he was alive...
SYRACUSIAN
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This is the only surviving gold coin with Alexander's portrait, minted while he was alive, according to Dr Osmund Bopearachi , professor at Berkley and Sorbonne University , director of the Archeology Department of "Hellenic and Eastern Civilisations" of the National French Research Institute (CNRS-ENS).
Its authenticity has been questioned by a few researchers, but the professor has Andrew Stuart and Frank Holt that are in agreement with him, along with the results of the medal's scientific analysis and of course his own opinion as an expert in this field. It was F. Holt who had the idea of the reason of minting this medal : in the battle of Hydaspes (river), 326 BC, Alexander had to fight 250 elephants. He did not have any elephants, but he ordered part of his cavalry to attack the center of the elephants and the other two parts to attack the elephants from the right and from the left. The elephants got confused and then panicked, at which point they started running mad, crushing the Indian soldiers at the same time.
The professor believes that a small number of these medals were minted to commemorate this victory and were given as a gift to his generals, and this is the only surviving example......
...... The professor found it as part of a huge treasure of 550000 coins and other objects, dating from the 5th to the 2nd century BC that was discovered in a huge well in Mir Zakah village of Eastern Afghanistan. It is the second time that a treasure is discovered in the same spot, the first being in 1947, where 30000 coins had been found, and stored in Kaboul's National Museum, from which they were stolen in 1993 when it was destroyed. The second time was in 1992, and the archaeologists haven't yet finished discovering more objects and coins, but the area is one of the most dangerous in the planet and noone can approach the village and feel secure.
......
The medal currently belongs to a collector who intends to eventually donate it to a museum.
(partial free translation from this article )
edited to correct the number of elephants in the battle
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The Alexander Medallion: Exploring the Origins of a Unique Artifact
Imago Lattara, 2011. Pp. 104. ISBN 978-2-95166-796-9
I'm on the fence with this coin. Some things point to a forgery some to a genuine coin.
The reviewer, below, was harder on the book that I would have been. It's a very interesting and enjoyable read for anyone intrigued by this coin.
But the book can be hard to find. I think it was a small print run. You wont find it on Amazon. But there's one on abebooks now.
Review: The Alexander Medallion: Exploring the Origins of a Unique Artifact
EDIT: BTW, the gold elephant coin posted above is the reverse of the Alexander obverse at the top.
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My reaction to seeing this number is there's one too many zeros. Can you confirm?
<< <i>250,000 elephants?
My reaction to seeing this number is there's one too many zeros. Can you confirm? >>
My thought as well.
I've read it's well accepted that ancient accounts of battle statistics are skewed by hyperbole.
edit typo and to say thanks for an interesting post SYRACUSIAN.
I apologize. Still an impressive and fearful sight for Alexander's 34000 soldiers. No mistakes in the zeroes of the coins found up until now though. Over half a million and counting.
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Can you imagine cleaning up after a quarter million elephants?
and yea I got really skeptical at 250k elephants, hehe
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I'm familiar with the story of Alexander and the elephants, but had not known of the medallion. Can anyone explain what the symbol above the elephant is?
The 550,000 coin find is amazing to me. I wonder if that was a king's hoard, a thieves guild hoard, a bank? Or perhaps an invading army gathered and then stored them there. The history behind how those coins came to rest in one place would be quite a story in itself.
<< <i>Very interesting! Thanks Syracusian.
I'm familiar with the story of Alexander and the elephants, but had not known of the medallion. Can anyone explain what the symbol above the elephant is?
The 550,000 coin find is amazing to me. I wonder if that was a king's hoard, a thieves guild hoard, a bank? Or perhaps an invading army gathered and then stored them there. The history behind how those coins came to rest in one place would be quite a story in itself. >>
You are welcome.
The greater site, has been a place where entire new Greek-Indo cities have been discovered, and among the huge treasure, there are several coins that prove the existence of Greek rulers of the area, whose identity or existence was previously unknown. An example of these cities, is the one discovered coincidentally by professor Bopearachchi himself :
I was at Peshawar's bazaar (in Pakistan) when I heard that a treasure had been found in Sarai Saleh.The excavations had begun for the burial site of a local mullah, when the bulldozer hit something metallic, a container with 2500 coins inside that I was able to publish. As soon as I went to the area, I realized that it was the site of an ancient Greek-Indo city. I have alerted immediately my colleagues at Peshawar's University, and I've suggested them to start excavations. Indeed, they followed my advice and proceeded with the excavations, after which a Greek-Indo city was discovered, dated between the 2nd and first century BC, with ceramics and buildings similar to those that exist in Taxila city, that was discovered in the 1930s by Sir John Marshall.
..... It gives me a tremendous joy to be able to discover such treasures and new types of coins, discuss the numismatic circulation in India and Central Asia at the time and be able to publish them. At the same time it is a curse to know that most of these coins were either lost forever, or have ended up in private collections with no access.. At least I was able to find this gold medal among this treasure and publish it. Today it belongs to a collector who will eventually donate it to a museum.....
I cannot however answer your question about how that hoard ended up in this huge well. So far, only speculations have been made, the most convincing of which is that they have been stashed in that lake/huge well by ancient sylites, who looted them from palaces and other places, but who for some reason never came back to recuperate them.Perhaps determined's book reference can shed some more light into all this. But remember that it's still an ongoing process, and that there are more coins and objects of value to be recovered (let alone identified), only the danger that is constantly present at this particular part of the world, slows down the entire process immensely. That's without speculating about looting of the current findings, and local corruption, otherwise, how can their presence be explained in the bazaars of Peshawar, where the professor first saw them to begin with?....
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<< <i>Very neat. I love the elephant reverse. >>
Sweet hein?
Professor Robin LAne from Oxford University says..
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Reference here who is acknowledged by not only universities but by independent philosophical organisations as the authority on Macedon and Alexander the Great which states neither are Greek.
Anyway this is a debate for another time and another place.
Otherwise I think there should be one of these medallions yet to be found in Egypt prehaps if it is with the generals but prehaps a number yet to be found in Macedonia.
Great Alexander piece though!
Well, just Love coins, period.
<< <i>That is not correct please reference historical accounts from the period Aristotle and the like and it will become apparent that Macedon is not Greek. The only reason why Greece wants to claim it now is because of Alexander the Great cause otherwise they have no claim to fame (except bankruptcy).
Reference here who is acknowledged by not only universities but by independent philosophical organisations as the authority on Macedon and Alexander the Great which states neither are Greek.
Anyway this is a debate for another time and another place.
Otherwise I think there should be one of these medallions yet to be found in Egypt prehaps if it is with the generals but prehaps a number yet to be found in Macedonia. >>
Sigh....
Is this "authority" mentioned in the books of history taught to the students in Skopje? Noone ever taught you that your people of Slavic descent arrived in this area over a thousand years after the Macedonian empire? Also, NO OTHER medal will appear, and if it does, it won't be in Egypt or Skopje for that matter, but rather in the Peshawar bazaars or in the nearby areas. It wasn't the same generals who received it that returned to rule the empire after Alexander's death.
But you're right, it's not the place and not the time to lose my patience during Easter holidays. Happy Easter to you too, our new member from FYROM**** I assume.
7jag, I don't know why you made that comment about the Oxford professor, but I'm too tired to ask.
*= Former Yugoslavic Republic Of Macedonia
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So Macedonia is not Greek
On my reference he is accredited by the American philosophical society as the leading authority on Macedonia and Alexander the Great and is referenced widely outside Macedonia including primarily America, Australia and the UK.
I know that it wouldnt be exclusive to the diadochi or the successors but also to the other generals but remember they nearly all were headed back to Macedonia as the army was already heading back and they were also charged with the regency and protection of Alexander IV which was governed in Pella so the most would probably be found in Macedonia. After this they would be primarily found in Alexandria and Antioch as after the successor kingdoms broke apart they were heavily reliant on Macedonian migrants and as such still hired the Macedonian generals and soldiers for military positions of importance particularly the elite roles while Macedonians were also recruited into administrative and ruling roles as said before particularly elite and important positions. These would have for the most part be based out of the capitals of the respective factions so some may also be found there. So there should still be a number out there just either haven't been found yet or in private collections.
Anyway happy Easter to you syracusian and to all the other members on the board.
<< <i>
I know that it wouldnt be exclusive to the diadochi or the successors but also to the other generals but remember they nearly all were headed back to Macedonia as the army was already heading back and they were also charged with the regency and protection of Alexander IV which was governed in Pella so the most would probably be found in Macedonia. >>
So you are saying that there are chances that another such medal pops up near Pella, Ancient Macedonia's capital, which last time I checked is near Thessaloniki , in full Greek territory and quite a distance from the borders with FYROM.
Also, the bankruptcy has nothing to do with all this, regardless of the fact that even a bankrupt Greece's GDP is still multiples the GDP of FYROM. The real problem with the Gligorov propaganda started getting attention in Greece (and how to deal with this) in the mid to lae 80s. In 1992-93 there were some discussions about FYROM's future name. The then Greek minister of foreign affairs, Mr Samaras, and current Prime Minister of Greece, came to a heavy disagreement with the then PM (Mitsotakis) resulting in his resignation from the ministry and the party, which in its turn made the Mitsotakis conservative government to lose its parliamentary majority and early elections were called, that the late Andreas Papandreou (Socialist Party) won for the last time before his death.
If Greece had taken the problem seriously, ever since Tito, the great leader of United Yugoslavia created this propaganda from scratch, we wouldn't be where we are now. But as usual, Greece's leaders couldn't see two steps ahead, considered the matter so outrageous that it wasn't even worthy of a reply, and proceeded with more pressing problems. Anyway, another time, another place, we do not want to bore the fine members here to death. Again Happy Easter to everybody.
Dimitri
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I view Macedonia as how it was including the territory that is rightfully Macedonian.
To get back on topic here there were around 72 generals in Alexander's army so allowing for ones being given external duties such as local armies and administrative duties including regents in certain areas would put the number conservatively at around 40 generals with him so the locations of all the generals pieces could be anywhere they passed through or spent some time so Macedonia, Thrace, Asia Minor (now Turkey) Egypt, Syria all the way to the Indian border is plausible tho as I said before in order of probability of numbers it would be Macedonia, Syria, Egypt then Thrace.
Have you ever seen any coin from Macedonia without Greek letters on it?
OK Greece never conquered anything, Alexander wasn't taught by Aristotle and other famous Greeks, and his army and his father were probably speaking the mixture of Serbo-Romanian-Bulgarian that you speak at Skopje. Does this make you happy? Can we take a break for good now? If you want to post a coin on a different subject, I'd love to see it, otherwise this was my last post in this thread that you ruined, thank you very much.
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This is one of the better posts of recent, so why bring such irrelevant noise into the discussion.
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<< <i> newcastle2012 - this is a coin forum, not a political column. If you have a different view than the mainstream belief regarding Alexander the Great, there are other politically oriented boards to voice these. Also, what does bankruptcy have to do with this issue.
This is one of the better posts of recent, so why bring such irrelevant noise into the discussion. >>
Well said Z.
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Personally I too enjoyed the topic till your post on the subject but I can not and will not put up with the falsification of history. This too will be my last post in this thread.
To yet again remain on topic this article raises the possibility of a Sassanian army leaving it behind when pursued by an enemy which is interesting to say the least. Also on a bit of research it turns out that the gold was most likely domestically sourced from Afghanistan at the time as it was going through a massive mining boom however as another possibility the King which Alexander defeated in that battle was allowed by Alexander to remain a King as a satrap so perhaps a special striking for Alexander as a sign of appreciation? Tho the coin is an absolutely beautiful example of Macedonian artisan's craft ship any how. The letters translate as S for the above letter and A for the one below on looking it up S may stand for Support so with A being widely used for Alexander's name on his fractional coinage prehaps it would be a strike from King Porus stating ruling with the Support of Alexander? Just thinking out loud on these points however.
P.s. I didn't bring up bankruptcy and I didn't dispute that he was taught by Aristotle.
P.s.s. Please reference the intial post by syracusian as I did not bring up the issue at first but it was initiated by him
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Love the elephant
as for newcastle2012 hey two things welcome to the forum obviously ... but honestly you can't walk in, and start a tussle like this.. like really?
This is a numismatic (world) themed forum I can tell you it def is not politically motivated in any directions or we'd have fought multiple battles on all fronts after the 1st year of the boards.
Which some did actually and that was banned for life years later - remember the open forum?
Whatever it is your beef with Alexander - you should have handled it differently - just did not feel right and I stopped reading after it sounded condescending to the OP.
what about the bactrian gold coin you posted?