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First things first, a brief history lesson: Cyprus was colonized by populations from the Greek world in the Mycenaean period (18th to 11th centuries BCE), while the Assyrians conquered it in the late 8th century BCE. Influences from the east by the Phoenicians, Egyptians and later Persians were also great. From the 7th century BCE onwards, we know of about 10 city-kingdoms that divided the island and were culturally connected mostly with the Greek world.

The scribbles you see on our coin are actually letter forms of the Cypriot syllabary. This form of writing, the Cypro-syllabic, was used in Cyprus from the 11th to the 4th century BCE (Fig.1), before the Greek alphabet was established on the island. It is a syllabic script, meaning that each symbol represents a syllable.

On this coin we observe the inscription 𐠞 𐠪 𐠐 𐠃 𐠩 𐠨 𐠀 𐠪 𐠃 𐠂 𐠍, which translates to “king Stasioikos”, the king who ordered the issue of the coin. The inscription on the back side of the coin is the same as in front, only in genitive form, indicating the coin “of king Stasioikos”.

Such legends (inscriptions on coinage) were frequently used to indicate either the name of the city-state or the monarch that issued them. In some cases, like Stasioikos here, we only know of the existence of certain individuals through the coins they issued, and in this way their names survive to this day.