circa 300-280 BCE
Æ 11 mm, 1,06 g
Radiate head of Helios facing slightly right
KRAN, grape cluster; crayfish to left.
Walker, A New Mint in Caria, SM 112 (November 1978), pp. 86-88.
Very little is known about Kranaos and it wasn’t until recently that this attribution was suggested. It came based on finding two of these coins in the vicinity of Halikarnassos. Based on the similarities to other coinage and the fact that small bronzes typically didn’t travel too far, it was attributed to the small town of Kranaos.
We don’t know too much about this town save that it was combined with another city called Symmaithos to create Antioch on the Meander by Antiochos I Soter. Alan Walker’s paper surmises that this coinage was minted in the years before that move and the city was already reasonably prosperous before it combined.
The existence of the rays coming out of the head of Helios on the obverse was the clue that made it clear this coin wasn’t from Thessaly, where a city Kranae existed, and must have been from Caria, where Helios was worshipped.
The word ‘kranaos’ means ‘rugged’ in Greek. Crayfish were found in the Meander River which flowed near Kranaos.
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