Basic information Coinage in the Classical Period
| Ancient Greek name: | Κελένδερις |
| Latinised name: | Celenderis |
Basic information
Kelenderis, located at the southern foot of the Central Taurus Mountains, was an important port city on the sea route connecting East and West.1 Today, its remains lie beneath the city of Aydıncık (Mersin Province, Turkey).
Archaeological evidence indicates settlement in this area since the Late Neolithic period.2 In the 2nd millennium and the first half of the 1st millennium BC, Cilicia Trachea was inhabited by Luwians.3 The name of the city is therefore probably of Luwian origin, although a Greek origin cannot be ruled out.4 Pseudo-Apollodorus states that the city was founded by the mythical Sandokos of Syria.5 According to Pomponius Mela and Aelius Herodianus, Kelenderis was founded as a colony of Samos.6 This does not rule out the possibility that an earlier settlement already existed at or near the site of Kelenderis.7 The founding of the city by the Samian colonists probably took place as early as the 8th century BC.8 Pseudo-Skylax, writing in the second half of the 4th century BC, calls Kelenderis a polis in the urban sense.9
Kelenderis appears in the tribute list included in the Athenian decree on the assessment of Delian League tribute for 425/4 BC. Its tribute was 2 talents.10 This, together with the fact that the coins of Kelenderis from the 5th and 4th centuries BC were Greek in style and bore ethnic legends exclusively in Greek, indicates that the city enjoyed semi-autonomous status under Persian rule. Thus, Kelenderis was probably a polis in the political sense as well, enjoying commercial freedom and paying taxes to the Persian administration.11
Together with Athens, Kelenderis was one of the most important suppliers of pottery to the Levant in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Throughout the Levantine littoral, people ate and drank from bowls and plates produced in Kelenderis and Athens.12
In the early 3rd century BC, Kelenderis was incorporated into the Ptolemaic Empire but probably retained semi-autonomous status. At the end of the Hellenistic period, the city suffered from piracy.13 Piracy was eventually eradicated by the Romans, and the city enjoyed renewed prosperity under Roman rule, continuing to mint bronze coins until the mid-3rd century AD.14 The city subsequently came under the rule of the Byzantine Empire, the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, the Emirate of Karaman and, finally, the Ottoman Empire.
Coinage in the Classical Period
| Silver denominations: | Staters, third staters, obols and hemiobols (Persian weight standard). |
| Bronze denominations: | Probably only one denomination. |
| City ethnic on coins: | ΚΕΛΕΝΔΕΡΙΤΙΚΟΝ = “(coin) of Kelenderis”, ΚΕΛΕΝ, ΚΕΛΕ, ΚΕΛ, ΚΕ and Κ. There are also anepigraphic issues and coins with distorted inscriptions (ΚΕΝΛ, ΚΕΔ). |
| Further information: | Coin Catalogue / Kelenderis |
1The ancient topography of the city is described by Zoroglu 2002:
“Reflecting the topography of Rough Cilicia, the first hills of the Tauros Mountains rise directly from the Mediterranean Sea here and frame a wide bay, forming a narrow strip along the coast. Between the hills, which are almost completely covered with pine trees, there are narrow valleys with seasonal streams, which also connect the coast to the highland. At the west end of the bay there is a small inlet framed by a short, rocky peninsula in the south, which is nearly 20 m above sea level and formed the harbor of ancient Kelenderis. The peninsula was the acropolis and the area behind the harbor, where the ground tapers down to sea level and becomes almost flatter, was the lower city. On one hand, the topography described here protected the town from the invasions coming from the inland; on the other hand, it made it possible for Kelenderis to be one of the best harbors on the sea routes between East and West and between Rough Cilicia and Cyprus.”
2Zoroglu 2002.
3Zoroglu 2002.
4Zgusta 1984, pp. 244–5 (§ 473–2), interprets the name of the city as κελένδρυον, ‘oak beam’. According to Pausanias, Description of Greece, 2.32.9, Kelenderis was also the name of the port of the Peloponnesian city of Troizen.
Some authors have pointed out the similarity between the name Kelenderis and the word KRNTRYŠ, which occurs as an epithet of the god Baal in a Phoenician inscription at Karatepe from the 8th century BC (see Demir 2021, p. 88; Casabonne 2004, note 616 on p. 146). This would suggest that the Greek colonists adopted this original name of the local settlement. Demir 2021, however, has shown that KRNTRYŠ is a compound of the words for ‘granary’ and for ‘wine’ and ‘vineyard/wine storehouse’. Thus, Baal Krntryš refers to the god of thunder, grain and wine, and this epithet does not indicate a toponym.
5Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, 3.14.3. Nollé 2005, pp. 190–3, proposes an alternative founding myth, according to which the founding of the city was made possible by Bellerophon, who successfully hunted the mountain goats (later depicted on the Kelenderis coins), which were destroying the fields and vineyards of the area.
6Pomponius Mela, De chorographia, 1.77; Aelius Herodianus, Herodiani Technici Reliquiae, Vol. 2, 925.6.
7According to Beal 1992, the predecessor of Kelenderis was the Bronze and Iron Age city of Ura. This important city was part of the Hittite Empire in the Late Bronze Age and the capital of the kingdom of Pirindu in the Iron Age (Bryce 2011, p. 746, Ura I). However, the identification of Ura with Kelenderis has been rejected (Lemaire 1993; Casabonne 1999, pp. 74–81; Casabonne 2004, note 616 on p. 146).
8Shipley 1987, pp. 41–2; Jones and Russell 1993, p. 294, note 4.
9Pseudo-Skylax, Periplous, 102.
10Inscriptiones Graecae, IG I3 71.146; Paarmann 2007, pp. I.81 and IIA.82.
11Zoroglu 2002; Hansen and Nielsen 2004, p. 1218.
12Lehmann et al. 2019, pp. 21–24.
13Zoroglu 2002; Durukan 2009, p. 79.
14Zoroglu 2002. The last coins were minted under Trajan Decius, Roman emperor from 249 to 251 AD. Coins were also minted at Kelenderis in the names of his wife, Herennia Etruscilla, and his son Hostilian, who was appointed Caesar in 250 AD. See, for example, SNG Levante 556–560, SNG Levante Supp. 140–141, SNG von Aulock 5653, and BMC 21, p. 59.
14 July 2021 – 17 August 2026