Asie - Royaume de Perse - Baydād - Bagadates I (3ème siècle)
Tétradrachme.
Rare et magnifique exemplaire - Patine médaillier.
16.14g - Alram 515
Superbe - NGC AU (4/5 et 2/5).
This coin was issued by supposedly the first king of Persis, an independent kingdom which appeared in the early 3rd century BC. Though issued in Sasanian territory (now southwestern Iran), the iconography, which reflects a Greek Hellenistic tradition, shows a distinctly Persian type, with this bearded portrait, moustachioed, with a satrapal headdress (the bashlyk) and an earring. The coins of Baydād depict him seated to left on a throne with a scepter and a jug, or praying before a fire-temple of Ahura-Mazda (as guardian of the Zoroastrian faith). They bear legends which are rarely readable, almost blundered, notably because many of his coins were overstruck on Greek tetradrachms. The kingdom survived some four centuries, and its authority went from the northern Persian Gulf to the opposite coasts along Arabia.