On the Attribution of the Stater of King Mithridates, Found in 2013 during the Excavation of Artesian Fort

The unique stater 46/47 CE on both sides has imprinted busts of men turned to the right: on the obverse — a beardless man in a laurel wreath, framed by the legend “ΒΑCΙΛΕΩC ΜΙΘΡΙΔΑΤΟΥ”, and on the reverse — a bearded man without a headdress, deliberately barbaric in appearance. In front of the latter there is a sign known both in Central Asia (Khwarazm, where it was found on coins, Kangju and nomadic territories of South and West Kazakhstan), and among the Sarmatians of Eastern Europe. Probably, the studied coin was minted on behalf of the king Mithridates III. It has two portraits: on the obverse — Emperor Claudius, on the reverse — the aforementioned Bosporan sovereign. Such a tamga (its different placement in space was allowed) was previously presented in Europe on a slab from the Artesian fortress in the same row with the Aspurgos sign. It is located in the center of the “Kerch written slab” with almost 500 signs. After the middle of the 1 st c. CE, such a sign on a horse stamp is presented in the Lower Don necropolis of Kirsanovskii III in the Middle Sarmatian burial of an aristocrat. Apparently, this is the last representative of this clan, so the stamp (the rarest case) was buried with him. Probably, the tamga on the coin represents the sign of a clan that belonged to a very influential aristocracy of Central Asian origin, which turned out to be by the beginning of the 1 st c. CE on the territory of the Kuban Siraces, and after the strengthening of the Alans migrated to the mouth of the Don.