Catalog
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| Issuer | Hephaistia |
|---|---|
| Year | 280 BC - 190 BC |
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| Composition | Bronze |
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| Reverse description | A large, naturalistic bunch of grapes suspended from a vine branch entwined around a thyrsos, depicted in high relief against a plain field. The cluster is rendered with individual spherical pellets representing the grapes, conveying the sacred Dionysiac symbolism closely associated with the city of Hephaistia on Lemnos. A partial Greek inscription appears above the design. The composition is compact and well-centered within the irregular circular flan. |
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| Mint | Hephaistia, Lemnos |
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| Additional information |
Hephaistia, the principal city of Lemnos, issued civic bronze under its own authority during a period when the island oscillated between Macedonian and Athenian influence — Athens had held Lemnos as a cleruchy since the late fifth century, and reasserted control following the disruptions of the early Hellenistic period. Autonomous civic bronze of this type reflects intervals when local magistrates exercised enough administrative independence to authorize coinage. The SNG Copenhagen 983 reference places this firmly within the recognized corpus, though die studies for Lemnian civic bronze remain underdeveloped compared to the island's better-documented Athenian-period issues.