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| Issuer | Melos (Cyclades) |
|---|---|
| Year | 300 BC - 100 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Reference(s) | BMC Greek#3 , Traité III#1387 |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Youthful male figure, identified as Herakles or a heroic archer, depicted nude and kneeling on his right knee in three-quarter view to the right, drawing a bow at full stretch. The figure's musculature is rendered in the archaic-to-classical Greek tradition. The ethnic inscription M A (abbreviation for MEΛION) appears in the field, identifying the issuing city of Melos. |
| Reverse script | Greek |
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| Additional information |
Melos, the southwesternmost of the major Cycladic islands, struck bronze coinage during a period when the island's population had been entirely replaced — the Athenians massacred the adult male inhabitants in 416 BC and settled the island with their own colonists, an event recorded in devastating detail by Thucydides. The autonomous Melian bronze issues of the Hellenistic period therefore represent a community reconstituted under Macedonian-era realities, not a continuous civic tradition.
The BMC reference places this among a small, tightly clustered series with very limited die variety.