Catalog
| Issuer | Carthage |
|---|---|
| Year | 400 BC - 350 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 2.03 g |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
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| Technique | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Horse standing right, with head turned to face left, depicted in a naturalistic stance with muscular detail. A palm tree rises behind the horse to the left, a characteristic symbol of Carthaginian civic iconography. A grain ear or palm branch is visible in the lower field beneath the horse, and no legend or exergual inscription is present. The composition follows the standard Punic type associating the horse with Carthaginian military and religious identity. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
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| Mintage | ND (400 BC - 350 BC) |
| Additional information |
Carthage struck no coinage of its own until the late fifth century BC, when the need to pay Greek mercenaries during the Sicilian campaigns forced the city to produce coins on foreign soil — initially in Sicily itself, using Greek dies and Greek standards. The shift to a domestic bronze coinage came later and gradually, as Carthage's commercial reach demanded a fiduciary currency for local exchange rather than the high-value silver it had always preferred for external trade.
The MAA 18 reference places this piece within Jenkins and Lewis's foundational 1963 corpus, still the primary typological framework for early Carthaginian bronze.