Birytis

Reverse of small bronze coin from Birytis (3rd century BCE).

A tiny coin that my dad gave me recently. In stray moments I've wondered, fascinated, about what it tells and can't tell, its faint light into the vast cavern of history that we can never access.

Masses of coins like this survive from the 4th-3rd century BCE. The reverse is marked with the Greek capital letters 

Β (beta) =  B

Ι (iota)  =  I

Ρ (rho) =  R

Υ (upsilon)   =  Y

The letters are arranged around a vertical club. It's assumed that these are the first four letters of the name "Birytis" and this was where the coins were struck.

The existence of a place called Birytis has barely scraped into the historical record. Its presumptive inhabitants the Berysioi are named in Athenian tribute lists of 454-445 BCE (it sounds like they were in the Delian League). Birytis (or rather, Berytis) is mentioned in the Ethnica of the grammarian Stephanus Byzantius (fl. 6th century CE).

Walter Leaf:

A word may be added about the modern town of Bairamich. Whether or no this stands on an ancient site it is now impossible to say; it is full of ancient stones, but, as we have seen, until the contrary is proved it must be assumed that these have been brought hither from Kurshunlu-tepe. But I have elsewhere (A. B. S. A., XVII 273-274*) shown reasons for thinking that the ancient Berytis or Birytis may have stood on the site; in any case it cannot have been far away.  It  is  known  only  from  coins with  the  legend  BIPY,  and  from  its  appearance  in  the  Attic tribute  lists,  where  the  Βϵρύσιοι οἱ ὑπὸ τῆι Ἴδηι  pay  the  modest sum  of  ten  minæ ;  and  from  Stephanos, Βέρυτις͵ Τρωϊκὴ πόλις  (cf.   Βήριθρος͵ πόλις Τρωϊκή.  Compare  also  Wroth  in  B.M.C., Troas,   p.   xlv.)     But  whether   it   be   Berytis  or   no,   it  is  the likeliest  place  where  one  can  hope  to  learn  something  more  of Skepsis. 

(Source: https://archive.org/download/anatolianstudies00robi/anatolianstudies00robi.pdf (30MB PDF). Walter Leaf, "Skepsis in the Troad" in Anatolian Studies Presented to Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, Manchester University Press, 1923, p. 272. I tried to render Leaf's Greek quotations precisely, but unicode couldn't handle a couple of small details, so check the original if it really matters.)

* Walter Leaf, "The Topography of the Scamander Valley I," The Annual of the British School at Athens, vol 17 (1910-11), pp. 266-83:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/30096149

*

78 Βέρυτις.: Τρωϊκὴ πόλις. τὸ ἐθνικὸν Βερυτίτης, ὡς Ἄβοτις Ἀβοτίτης.

(Stephanus Byzantius, Ethnica. Source: 2006 edition (alpha-gamma) by Margarethe Billerbeck, https://archive.org/details/STEPHANUSBYZANTIUSETHNICAvol.AALPHAGAMMA2006ByMargaretheBillerbeck/page/340/mode/2up?q=brita .)

*

So Stephanus says that Birytis (or rather, Berytis) was in the Troad (a region of NW Asia Minor, around the site of Troy/Ilium); and the tribute list specifies that these Berysioi live "under Ida" (probably to distinguish them from the inhabitants of the Phoenician Berytos i.e. modern Beirut). Walter Leaf argues that "under Ida" must in this case refer to the Scamander valley, which is where most of the "BIRY" coins have been found. 

The modern town that Walter Leaf suggests as the site of ancient Birytis is spelled Bayramiç on Google Maps. It's an inland town, east of Troy and north-west of Mount Ida (Kazdağı); it's famed for its white nectarines.

Bayramiç

[Image source: https://www.antalyaekspres.com.tr/bayramicin-ismi-nereden-geliyor/amp . The accompanying article (in Turkish) says that Bayramiç rose to prominence during the Ottoman era but some people think the name has a more ancient origin.]

Bayramiç white nectarines

[Image source: https://www.tarlasera.com/haber-11067-bayramic-beyazinin-gelecegi-parlak .]

I'm not quite sure, but it seems that Walter Leaf's plausible guess hasn't been confirmed and the location of Birytis remains unknown. 

Birytis (nothing is known of the site and history of this town) ...

(David R. Sear, Greek Coins & Their Values Vol II: Asia & Africa (1979), p. 376. [PDF])

Wikipedia's mention of a tentative location at Mersinoba seems to have nothing tangible behind it, just approximate map placements with question-marks. 

 

Obverse of small bronze coin from Birytis (3rd century BCE).

Here's the other side. 

Of a similar coin (#4056), David Sears (ibid., p. 376) says: "Beardless hd. of Kabeiros, ... wearing pilos; star on each side." But in other Birytis coins the "Kabeiros" may be bearded and the stars may be absent. On my coin I think there's a star on the right, though it's much degraded; presumably there was meant to be a star on the left too, but the rim of the coin has either worn down or never reached that edge of the anvil die.

You can read about the Kabeiroi on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Once you've stripped away the hearsay and speculation what's left isn't very enlightening. Anyway the world of secret mystery cults seems out of tune with something as public and mundane as a head on a coin. An image bringing good fortune to travellers... That seems more the sort of thing you'd stick on a coin, but who knows?

I cannot say that the heads on Birytis coins bear any great resemblance to the standing figures that are clearly labelled KABEIROS on coins from Thessaloniki. These figures carry a hammer and a rhyton (ceremonial drinking vessel), which might represent metalworking. They are sometimes depicted wearing a Phrygian cap with its bent-over top, headgear that's similar but a bit different from the purely conical pilos. 

I wondered why no-one thinks the Birytis head is one of the Dioskouroi (Castor and Pollux). The pilos is one of their iconographic symbols, and so are the two stars (i.e. the constellation Gemini). 

The main reason (Wroth,  G. F. Hill) is that the Berytis coins seem to depict two different individuals, both wearing the pilos: a beardless youth (as on my coin) and an older bearded man. That suggests not twins but a father-and-son team. The Kabeiroi included such a team, sometimes named as Axiocersus and his son Cadmilus. 

Thanks for the journey, Dad!