Nomos AG
Auction 24 22 May 2022
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CILICIA. Ura (Kelenderis). Early 5th century BC. Stater (Silver, 20.5 mm, 10.29 g, 3 h). Winged bull walking to right; between hind legs, ankh-symbol; before, sprig of ivy with five leaves. Rev. 'RH (in Aramaic) Pegasos flying to right; all within a dotted border within a shallow incuse square. Apparently unpublished, but see Roma XIX, 2020, 571 for another example from the same dies. For the city: R. H. Beal, "The Location of Cilician Ura," Anatolian Studies 42, 1992, pp. 65-73. An iconographically intriguing coin. The winged bull on the obverse has parallels from the East as well as on coins from neighbouring Lykia. Struck from damaged dies, some roughness and with a test cut on the reverese, otherwise, very fine.
From the Paulaner collection, Bavaria, c. 1960-1990s.
The city of Ura, a Bronze Age city well-known to historians of Hittite Asia Minor and its relations to the Mesopotamian kingdoms to the south, was hitherto basically unknown to numismatists. This is because the city's previously known coins were identified as being from an uncertain mint, as Traité II, 2, 1030 = pl. CXXIII, 8, and 1031 = pl. CXXIII, 9: both with an ibex on the obverse and an owl on the reverse. However, previously unpublished coins of the present type, all with clearly legible legends, make their identification clear. In addition, we now know that the ancient city of Ura began to become increasingly Hellenized and, shortly after this coin was struck, changed its name to the now much more numismatically familiar Kelenderis! By the early 5th century Ura had, however, a well-known ancient school of medicine, which Hippocrates cited for its practice of uranalysis.
From the Paulaner collection, Bavaria, c. 1960-1990s.
The city of Ura, a Bronze Age city well-known to historians of Hittite Asia Minor and its relations to the Mesopotamian kingdoms to the south, was hitherto basically unknown to numismatists. This is because the city's previously known coins were identified as being from an uncertain mint, as Traité II, 2, 1030 = pl. CXXIII, 8, and 1031 = pl. CXXIII, 9: both with an ibex on the obverse and an owl on the reverse. However, previously unpublished coins of the present type, all with clearly legible legends, make their identification clear. In addition, we now know that the ancient city of Ura began to become increasingly Hellenized and, shortly after this coin was struck, changed its name to the now much more numismatically familiar Kelenderis! By the early 5th century Ura had, however, a well-known ancient school of medicine, which Hippocrates cited for its practice of uranalysis.