165, Lot: 43. Estimate $500. Sold for $800. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

LYCIA, Phaselis. Circa 530-500 BC. AR Stater (20mm, 10.98 g). Prow of galley right, terminating in a boar's forepart / Rough incuse punch. Heipp-Tamer Series III, Em. 1a, 22 (V13/R22) = Weber 291. VF.

Phaselis was founded in 690 BC by settlers from the island of Rhodes. In the same year, the great Rhodian seafarers also founded Gela, on the island of Sicily, thus extending their influence across the Greek world. The colony of Phaselis was the one purely Greek city in Lycia and differed in language, culture, and alphabet from the adjacent cities of the region. It should be noted that the coinage of Phaselis is among the earliest, if not the earliest, of all silver coinage struck in Asia Minor, beginning a few decades after the introduction of coinage in Lydia. Heipp-Tamer begins the coinage of Phaselis circa 550 BC with her Series 1.