Elymais drachm

[Pellinore]

Here's one of these nice late Elymais drachms. I bought it because of its appealing impression, both persons look good-humoured and friendly. But also because of the lettering, you rarely see texts on Elymais drachms. According to Van 't Haaff this is the ruler Orodes V and it says his name: Orodes King. I'm sure some of you can read it letter for letter. In the book this coin is numbered 1-1B (page 143).

AE drachm Elymais. Orodes V. King's profile t.l. with headband. Text at its left side. Rev. Female head to the left. 15 mm, 2.63 gr.



-- Paul

[JMP]

Hello Pellinore, interesting coin!
Using the Elymaic alphabet, I think one can read (top to bottom):

"r ? d, m l k 5"

Possibly: Orod malik 5 (the fifth king Orodes)
I assume the letter after (= under) "kap" is "he", the fifth letter in the alphabet.
Comparing with Hebrew: "heh" is the fifth letter in the Hebrew alphabet and it is used as "5".

After all, it is good you told us what there has to be on the coin, to be able to puzzle this together !

[Pellinore]

Thank you very much, JMP. I'm surprised the Elymaeans may have used the number 5 on their coins. That's unusual, isn't it?
-- Paul

[JMP]

I admit, it is kind of a strange guess   .
But yes, there is something after "malik", one character... what can it be ?

[britanico]

Elymaean characters are now available in Unicode. Here is the legend on your drachm in Noto Sans Elymaic built with help from the Aksharamukha Script Converter.

𐿥𐿳𐿥𐿣 𐿬𐿫𐿪𐿠

From right to left it reads Orodes King. That last letter is an Aleph - a long A.