- Return to “Provenance Coins (Part II): Eastern Greek” (to this coin)
Sakaraukae (Sacaraucae), Tanlis Mardates (Tanlismaidates) & Lady Raggodeme (Rangodeme) AR Drachm (19mm, 3.48g, 12h), c. mid-1st BCE, probably struck 80-40 BCE at Alexandria Ariana (Herat).
Obverse(?): ΡΑΓΓΟΔΗΜΗ ΚΥΡΙΑ. Veiled head of Raggodeme right, holding palm. Circular countermark: TANΛICMOC around bearded head right.
Reverse: ΤΑΝΛΙC ΜΑΙΔΑTΗC. Helmeted bust of Tanlis right.
Reference: Senior 197.1D. Cf. Alram 1269A (corr., CM: “Tanlesm”); MIG 608 (corr., CM: “Otannes”) & Mitchiner ACW pp. 130-1, 759-761 (same), 758 (without CM; Herat, 85-78 BCE).
Publication (Online): Zeno 40834 (this coin) = PDC 20997 (this coin, both illustrated after Peus 376).
Provenance: Sammlung Wolf D. Derfler, Hoffheim [Peus 376 (29 Oct 2003), 787];
Collezione Alberto Mario Simonetta (1930-2011) [BFA e-105 (21 Oct 2021), 287].
Notes: Important specimen of a mysterious & historically interesting type. This coin was the first fully legible example of the countermark and may still be the best known.
The Saka were a nomadic people in Central Asia (in modern Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan). Those who settled in the eastern regions of Parthia became a client kingdom of the Arsacids and adopted their style of coinage.
The Drachms of this type are practically the only surviving evidence of Tanlis and Raggodeme, and among the few artifacts of Saka culture.
It is unclear, in fact, whether the Satrap (Governor) Tanlis Mardates and/or Lady Raggodeme were native Saka dynasts, or possibly Arsacid rulers imposed on them. A few obscure generations later (c. 19-46 CE), the conqueror Gondophares emerged from this region to found an Indo-Parthian Kingdom that survived for two centuries before the Sassanians toppled it.
A.M. Simonetta (before he owned this coin) hypothesized a mint in Herat, followed by Mitchiner.
Including the portrait of a queen (or “Lady,” per the Greek rev. legend, Kyria) was highly unusual on coinage anywhere at this time. It was entirely unique in the Parthian world. (A generation or two later Phraataces would strike double-portrait coins with Musa on the reverse.)
For a long time, the countermark had been read incorrectly as “OTANNES” (e.g., by Mitchiner). Both Alram and R.C. Senior read it correctly as “Tanlis…(something).”
In 1999, Senior (pp. 106-7) wrote that the countermark “is known from several specimens but not a single one to date has a fully readable legend. The beginning seems to indicate the name Tanlis…but there are a few additional blundered letters. Until better specimens surface it remains speculation as to what they may represent.”
The present coin became Senior’s anticipated “better specimen” when it appeared in Peus Auktion 376 (important collection of Parthian formed by W. Derfler). The countermark is clearly legible as “TANΛICMOC.” (Some other puzzles remain unsolved, especially whether Tanlis might actually be a title.)
The Zeno 40834 entry includes Peus’s commentary (my trans.):
“The particularly well-preserved counterstamp on the present piece confirms Alram’s assumption that the inscription should be read as naming Tanlismaidates and not naming Otannes, as Mitchiner had read.”