Dynastic Lycia: In the light of the coins administrative organisation and historical geography

Lycia fell under the hegemony of the Persians subsequent to the conquest of the region byHarpagos in 540. The mintage in the region is considered to have begun right after the Persianking Dareios I divided his empire into twenty satrapies and specified tributes. Lycia, whichwas incorporated into the first satrapy in this new system, is known to have paid 400 talents oftribute annually along with Aiolis, Ionia, Caria, Milyas and Pamphylia. Lycia is observed tohave continued minting coinage until it was included in the Carian hegemony in 360.It is seen that the administrative structure of Lycia in the Classical Period was feudal,which is called as ?dynastic? by the modern authors. In this system, the feudals ere residingin fortified settlements (citadels) and ruling over the surrounding region. It has been establishedfrom legends of the Lycian coins that there were around 40 dynasts and 20 settlementsduring the Classical Period. That the dynasts like Kuprlli, Kheriga and Kher?i among theseestablished dynasts belonged to the Xanthian dynasty and they minted coinage in all over theregion and additionally diversity of the motives seen on these coins is abundant, point out thatthe city of Xanthos was an administrative center in the region.However, it is mostly obscure in which cities the dynasts known from these legends wereruling. Likewise, it has not yet been resolved exactly under which dynasts the mintage centersestablished from the legends were being ruled. In addition to these problems, even though it iswell known that there existed two minting standards (heavy and light) in Western and Central-Eastern Lycia, the question still arises if this seperation indicates two different kinds ofpolitical and economical organisation in the region. Yet, it is observed that there are linear anddepictive symbols on the coins. These symbols clearly represent certain dynasties, but thestudies dealing with determining which symbol represents which dynasty have not found asolution on the issue to date.In this study, all the Lycian coins dating from the Classical Period were listed through thepublished catalogues, the names of the dynasts and cities seen on the coinage were determined,and these names were discussed in detail by examining the literary and epigraphical evidence.Also, the motives and symbols of the determined dynastic and city coinage were placedin the plates and the political connections between the cities were tried to be understoodthereby.