Ricerc@Sapienza

Coin finds from the city of Hephaestia (Lemnos) are examined, together with the output of the local mint.

A hoard seized by Turkish authorities and probably found in the region of elaiussa Sebaste in Cilicia Tracheia is presented and discussed.

It is well known that the first coins were produced in Anatolia (more precisely in Lydia) between the end of the seventh and the beginning of the sixth century BCE.1 Coinage soon spread in the whole peninsula and provides evidence for varied monetary systems until the third century CE: coins of the cities, coins of dynasts and kings, coins of the satraps, coins of confederations, made in precious and less precious metals. In this short overview, some of the Cilician contexts will be
examined, which are a part of this wider general framework.

Bronze coins dated to the 1st cent. BC represent the earlier testimony of the existence of Elaiussa, in Rough Cilicia, quoted in literary sources only in the 1st cent. AD. Byzantine sources mention Elaiussa as a bishop’s siege in the middle of the 5th cent. AD, and as an Armenian episcopate in the XIVth cent.
The city lays on a promontory, now tied to the coast, but originally an Island, and on the mainland, and the excavations