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THE COLCHIS LIGHT STATER AND THE GOLDEN FLEECE
A Stack's Bowers blog article by Kyle Ponterio published January 12, 2017 highlights a coin with a connection to the Golden Fleece of Colchis.
-Editor
As the New York International Numismatic Convention (NYINC) draws to a close the Internet-only session of our official auction is still to come and offers numismatic treasures for everyone. For students of Greek mythology one piece stands out: Lot 5077 – a Colchis Light Stater. This coin is related to some of the greatest heroes ever written about, including Heracles, Eurytus, Theseus, and Orpheus and also has ties to one of the most iconic relics of the time — the Golden Fleece! The epic story of Jason and the Argonauts is filled with adventure, loss, betrayal, murder, sorcery and revenge. Pelias, who imprisoned his half-brother Aeson and seized his throne, became King of Lolcus in Thessaly. He began killing every descendant of Aeolus he could, but spared Aeson, father of Jason. After Jason’s birth, his death was faked and he was smuggled out of the city to be raised by the centaur Chiron, the trainer of heroes. When Jason was old enough he returned home to claim the throne as the rightful king of Lolcus. Pelias swore before Zeus that he would give up the throne upon Jason’s return home with the Golden Fleece from Colchis. Of course Jason accepted this task and assembled a truly impressive band of heroes for this perilous journey. The quest for the Golden Fleece supposedly took place around 1300 B.C. in the years before the Trojan War. However, this light stater is from much later, between the first century B.C. and the first century A.D., and is also from a remote geographic location. This explains the degradation of design in imitation of Alexander III (336-323 B.C.) or Lysimachos (323-281 B.C.). This interesting coinage series would benefit much from further research and study.
To read the complete article, see:
To read the complete lot description, see:
Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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