On Some Images of Archaic Coins of Ionia and Asia Minor on Scythian Zoomorphic Bronze Plaques

Abstract

The article studies the influence of zoomorphic images on the archaic coinage of Ionia and Asia Minor on the Scythian animal style. The borrowing of ancient coin images and designs by Scythians has long been the subject of a separate study. However, as a rule, the attention of researchers was limited to a circle of prestigious things made of precious metals mainly in the second half of the 5 th—4 th centuries BC. As it will be shown in this article, the influence of the Ionian and Asia Minor coinage on the formation of images of the Scythian animal style can be traced at least from the turn of the 6 th—5 th centuries BC and manifests itself not only in prestigious items, but also in quite ordinary bronze plaques, mainly decorating horse bridles. It is proved that in a number of cases, within the framework of the Scythian animal style, there was a direct borrowing of coin images and motifs (the full face of a lion, the motif of a four-fingered clawed paw, composition consisting of three boar heads). In other cases, the influence of coinage on the formation of images of the Scythian animal style seems more than likely (profile images of a cat predator and a lion, the “bird on a fish” plot). It is suggested that the influence of archaic Greek coinage on the Scythian animal style could be associated with waves of Ionian and Asia Minor migrants to the Northern Black Sea region in the second half of the 6 th—early 5 th centuries BC, or with the contacts between the Scythians, Ionians and Greeks during the Scythian-Persian war and the period immediately following it.