Lykaonia, Laranda. Very Fine Wolf Obol.

Lykaonia was an area in what is now central Turkey, north of the Taurus Mountains. Lukkawanna, the Ancient Hittite name for the area, came from the 2nd millennium B.C. and translated as ‘Land of Lukka’ with ‘Lukka’ meaning wolf. The Ancient Greek for wolf was ‘Lykos’ so this archaic association with wolves was already thousands of years old when this coin was struck. This association is celebrated on the silver obols we are offering here with an impressively engraved forepart of a wolf on the reverse of the coin. The obverse shows Baaltars, the local version of the Greek god, Zeus. This parallel can be seen in the way he is seated and holding his sceptre, the same as Zeus on Alexander the Great’s coinage. These coins grade Very Fine and were struck at the city of Laranda. They date to the middle of the 4th century B.C. and we only have a small group, I hope you get one!