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This silver coin is 21.5 mm in diameter and weighs 7.65 grams.
The lettered side shows the Silphium plant which was highly prized for its contraceptive and abortifacient properities and almost everything else. Widely discussed by ancient authors including Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, Theophrastus, and Dioscorides, it was said to cure such a wide variety of medical ailments that it was extolled as a panacea. It went extinct in the classical world in the first century CE for due to a combination of limited range, a drying envirnment, and overharvesting due to demand. Significantly, this coin shows it was under stress hundreds of years before it finally disappeared. It was never successfully transplanted to other areas in any large way.
The head shows the horned god who represented the chaos which caused rain storms. He was the hidden storm form of the sun god Hu. He is called Ba'al (meaning "Great One") in the Levant. He was usually shown as a bull around the Mediteranean. Consequently, this coin shows the extent of deity lordification even early in the Hellenistic empire era.
The lettered side shows the Silphium plant which was highly prized for its contraceptive and abortifacient properities and almost everything else. Widely discussed by ancient authors including Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, Theophrastus, and Dioscorides, it was said to cure such a wide variety of medical ailments that it was extolled as a panacea. It went extinct in the classical world in the first century CE for due to a combination of limited range, a drying envirnment, and overharvesting due to demand. Significantly, this coin shows it was under stress hundreds of years before it finally disappeared. It was never successfully transplanted to other areas in any large way.
The head shows the horned god who represented the chaos which caused rain storms. He was the hidden storm form of the sun god Hu. He is called Ba'al (meaning "Great One") in the Levant. He was usually shown as a bull around the Mediteranean. Consequently, this coin shows the extent of deity lordification even early in the Hellenistic empire era.
Coin incorrectly called "Magas as king of Kyrene" 282-261 BC from about the same time. This also has the Druid Akkadian phrase "Ku Yu Ru A" meaning "Don't involve the eagle-vultures to get this." The plant image shown is a date palm.
Photo from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Magas_as_king_of_Kyrene,_circa_282_or_275_to_261_BC.jpg
Kyrene Didrachm With Silphium Plant 294 – 275 BC
Kyrene Didrachm With Silphium Plant 294 – 275 BC
(June 12, 2025)
Cyrene, also sometimes anglicized as Kyrene, was an ancient Greek colony and Roman city near present-day Shahhat in northeastern Libya in North Africa. It was part of the Pentapolis, an important group of five cities in the region, and gave the area its classical and early modern name Cyrenaica.
It likely was colonized by settlers from Thera (modern Santorini) in the late seventh century BC. It was initially ruled by a dynasty of monarchs called the Battiads, who grew rich and powerful as a result of successive waves of immigration and the export of horses and silphium, a medicinal plant. By the fifth century BC, they had expanded their control over the other cities of Cyrenaica. It became the seat of the Cyrenaics, a school of philosophy in the fourth century BC, founded by Aristippus, a disciple of Socrates.
Translation of Text in Druid Akkadian (Med Text 107)
(read left to right. Capital letters on object. Small letters are inferred Inner vowels. Verbs in italic bold. Dual use letters are E/H, I/Y, U/W, and '/A in which vowel appears at beginning of words)Translation of Text in Druid Akkadian (Med Text 107)
Chart Used: Aegean Lineage, Letter style is Hellenistic (Greek)
- Ku Yu Ru A
- Ku Ḫu Ku E
In English
In English
- Don't involve the eagle-vultures to get this
- Involving Hu will involve ineffectiveness
This text is supporting the use of emotion magic to bring back the Silphium plant. Apparently, normal appeals to the life powers represented by the connective life power Hu and the life network editing eagle-vultures have not worked.
Likely Silphium Plants Discovered in Greek Colonized Anatolia
Likely Silphium Plants Discovered in Greek Colonized Anatolia
(June 12, 2025) A researcher from Istanbul University found a plant species in 2021 at three locations in Anatolia,modern Turkey, that resembled the ancient silphion plant. The resin of the silphion was extensively used as a spice, perfume, aphrodisiac, contraceptive and medicine. It occupied an important place in the export economy of ancient Cyrene (Kyrene), an old Greek and later Roman colony near north-eastern Libya.
A study published in the Frontiers in Conservation Science this year suspects that environmental changes could have been involved with its extinction. Widespread deforestation and desertification in Cyrenaica (modern-day eastern Libya) seems to have led to Silphium's disappearance. This is because the plants related to silphion, such as Ferula drudeana and Ferula asafoetida need cold and moist conditions for seed germination.
In a 2021 paper published in the journal Plants, Miski said he located Ferula drudeana in three regions that were once Greek villages.
- “These locations were discovered serendipitously with the help of local villagers, and these plant populations grow in protected enclaves such as stone-walled orchards,”
Reference
Reference
Krishnamurthy, Rohini (Sept 22, 2022) Ancient plant silphion known for curing many diseases probably still around. Online at: https://www.downtoearth.org.in/wildlife-biodiversity/ancient-plant-silphion-known-for-curing-many-diseases-probably-still-around-expert-85143
Map Showing Kyrene On Libyan Coast
Map Showing Kyrene On Libyan Coast
(June 12, 2025) Cyrene and its agricultural hinterland had a favourable climate for agriculture, producing a number of products for export to the wider Greco-Roman world including wheat, a variety of legumes, barley, rice, onions, garlic, cumin, saffron, white violet, roses, cucumber, tree moss, grapes, and edible fungus, while animal-derived exports included livestock such as horses, cattle, sheep, goats, mules, and camels, as well as animal products including hides, ostrich plumes, and murex shells. The remains of hundreds of olive oil presses also attest to the agricultural fecundity of this region.
Unlike many of the agricultural products listed above, silphium grew wild and uncultivated. Despite this impressive list of exports that fuelled the vibrant economy of Cyrene, it was silphium that was selected to appear on the silver coins of this kingdom and remained employed as the principal heraldic symbol of Cyrene on their silver coins for over three centuries
Reference
Reference
Briggs, Lisa and Jakobsson, Jens(2022) Searching for Silphium: An Updated Review. Heritage 5(2), 936-955; https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage5020051
Also online at: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/5/2/51
Silver coin of Kyrene, c. 525–480 BCE. British Museum number RPK,p97E.1.Car.
Fruit of Silphium
Fruit of Silphium
This coin image is thought to represent the fruit of the Silphium plant.
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