Drachm

Numismatists – the scholars who study coins – refer to the ‘front’ side of the coin, which usually features the head of a person or god, as the ‘obverse,’ and the ‘back’ side as the ‘reverse.’

On the obverse of this silver coin, a bust of the king faces to the right. He has a trim beard, rendered with dots, and wears a peaked cap with a diadem (the headband worn by victorious athletes in ancient Greece) tied over it, and an earring. The reverse shows a figure facing right standing before a structure. The structure is topped with crenellations, above which are two curved prongs flanking a triangle, perhaps representing flames. The structure also features five horizontal lines, bisected by a vertical one, suggesting perhaps that it has doors. To the right is a standard, with a bird perched on top of it.

This coin was minted by King Vadfradad II of Persis, called Autophradates in Greek, sometime in the early to mid-second century B.C. Persis refers to a region in southwestern Iran which was the heartland of the Achaemenid Empire. Under the Seleucids and Parthians, Persis was ruled by client kings like Vadfradad, who combined elements of Achaemenid, Seleucid and Parthian iconography on their coins. The diadem worn by Vadfradad, for example, is a common feature on images of Seleucid kings. The structure on the reverse has been interpreted variously as an altar or a temple.

This coin was excavated at Qasr-i Abu Nasr, near Shiraz. Much of the material from the site dates to the Sasanian period (A.D. 224-651); this coin is one the few objects suggesting it was occupied in the Parthian period as well.