Phanes (coin issuer)

Electrum coin from Ephesus, 625–600 BC. Obverse: Stag grazing right, ΦΑΝΕΩΣ (retrograde). Reverse: Two incuse punches, each with raised intersecting lines.

Phanes is a name on a series of early electrum coins, the most ancient inscribed coin series at present known, from Caria, Asia Minor. This group of coins has Greek legends. The longer legend may read (some letters are unclear and disputed)^[1] "Phaenos emi sema" (ΦΑΕΝΟΣ ΕΜΙ ΣHΜΑ), which may be translated as "I am the badge/mark/symbol of Phanes" or "I am the sign of the bright one".^{[2][lower-alpha 1]} The shorter legend is simply "Phaneōs" (ΦΑΝΕΩΣ).^[4]

The coins of Phanes are amongst the earliest of Greek coins. One, a hemihekte (a twelfth stater) of the issue, was found in a jar in the foundations of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the earliest known hoard of coins.^[5] Only six specimens of this coin type are known.^[6]

Possible identifications

Electrum coin from Ephesus, 625–600 BC. Stag grazing right, legend unclear, possibly ΦΑΕΝΟΣ ΕΜΙ ΣΕΜΑ (“I am the badge/sign/mark of the bright one”).

Phanes cannot be identified with certainty. He might have been the successful mercenary Phanes of Halicarnassus, described by Herodotus as serving first the Egyptian pharaoh Amasis II and then the Persian king Cambyses II in his invasion of Egypt.^[7] The coins might be associated with the primeval god Phanes, whose name means "light" or "shine", or that might have been an epithet of the local goddess identified with Artemis. Barclay V. Head found both suggestions unlikely and thought it more probably "the name of some prominent citizen of Ephesus".^[8]

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