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Æ17

Issuer Istros
Year 350 BC - 339 BC
Type Standard circulation coin
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Reverse description Eagle standing left with wings spread, depicted stooping downward and grasping a dolphin in its talons; the dolphin is rendered horizontally beneath the eagle, curving to the left. The composition is a characteristic emblem of Istros, referencing the city's maritime identity on the Black Sea coast. The Greek ethnic inscription IΣTPIH appears in the upper field, with the abbreviated magistrate's name ΔΙ in the lower field.
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Reverse lettering IΣTPIH ΔΙ
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Additional information

Istros, the westernmost of the major Greek Black Sea colonies, occupied a uniquely contested position at the mouth of the Danube delta — close enough to Scythian and Getan tribal territories that its mint output reflects periodic interruptions and shifts in civic authority. The city's bronze coinage of this period circulated in a region where Greek and steppe-nomadic economies overlapped uneasily, and local bronze issues served exchange networks that extended well beyond the colony's walls.

SNG Stancomb 169 draws from the Stancomb collection's concentration of Black Sea material, one of the more systematic assemblages of Pontic civic bronze assembled in the twentieth century.