1 Diobol Beast series

Populonia stands as one of the few Etruscan cities known to have struck its own coinage, and among the earliest issues in the Italian peninsula. The Beast series diobols belong to the formative phase of this mint, when Populonia's economy ran on iron smelting and maritime trade with Greeks and Carthaginians alike — contact that almost certainly introduced the technology and concept of struck coinage to the city in the first place.

The SNG Firenze specimen referenced here was recovered from Tuscany's archaeological record and remains a key comparative piece for die studies of this series.