In Turkey, 2,100-Year-Old Coins Show Mithradates VI Using Medusa, a Myth That May Have Warned Rome

A new study of coins and sculptures from Tokat Province in Turkey says King Mithradates VI of Pontus (about 120 to 63 BC) used Medusa imagery in his propaganda against Rome. The author, Şengül Dilek Ful of Tokat Gaziosmanpaşa University, argues the imagery may have carried a political warning for Rome.

The coins

The study looks at bronze coins from Kabeira, Komana and Taulara, three centres in present-day Tokat Province. They date to the Mithradatic period, roughly 2,100 years ago. One type shows Athena on the front and Perseus holding Medusa’s severed head on the back. Another shows Medusa’s head on a shield, or aegis, with Nike holding a palm branch. The coins may have helped communicate the king’s ambitions.

Medusa on tombs and in baths

Medusa keeps appearing in Tokat for centuries after the king. The study lists a marble sarcophagus fragment in the Tokat Museum, which Ful dates to the 2nd century AD, and a basalt funerary stele from the Niksar Leylekli Bridge necropolis with a six-line Greek inscription, dated to the 3rd or 4th century AD. It also lists a terracotta plaque from a Roman bath at Sebastopolis, an architrave-frieze from Sebastopolis in the Antonine style of the 2nd century AD, and an orthostat block in the Tokat Museum from the mid-4th or early 5th century AD. On tombs, Medusa’s face could offer reassurance and protection.

What the study does not claim

Ful does not claim one unbroken cult or a single unchanged meaning for Medusa. The original uses of several Tokat pieces also remain uncertain.

Source: Ful, Ş. D. (2026), “The Place and Significance of Medusa in Tokat in the Light of Numismatic and Archaeological Finds,” Edebiyat ve Beşeri Bilimler Dergisi 78, pp. 230 to 239, DOI 10.55590/literatureandhumanities.1949971. Reported by Arkeonews on 20 October 2026. The image on our post shows a bronze coin from Amisos, a city the study does not cover (SILVER Numismatic Database).