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| Issuer | Olympia |
|---|---|
| Year | 300 BC - 225 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Drachm |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Laureate head of Zeus facing right, rendered in high relief with a flowing beard and long wavy hair beneath the laurel wreath. The facial features are boldly modelled in the robust Peloponnesian style characteristic of Elean coinage, with a strong brow, prominent nose, and full beard extending across the lower cheek and chin. The portrait fills the flan with authority, and the field is otherwise plain. |
|---|---|
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Olympia itself was not a polis in the conventional sense — it had no permanent citizen population to speak of — which makes its bronze coinage an unusual product of sanctuary administration rather than civic governance. The Eleans controlled the site and its games for much of antiquity, but periods of Pisatan resistance and shifting regional power occasionally complicated that authority, and the precise issuing body behind bronzes of this type remains a point of scholarly dispute. BCD 271 falls within a sequence tied to the sanctuary's own economic needs: feeding pilgrims, paying workmen, managing dedications.