Bronze AE

Olbia's bronze coinage of the mid-first century BC was struck under conditions of extreme political disruption. The city had been sacked by the Getan king Burebista around 55–50 BC, its population scattered and its civic institutions effectively destroyed. These small bronzes are among the last issues before that catastrophe fully silenced the mint, or represent a tentative resumption of local coinage by a community trying to reconstitute itself from near-total collapse.

Anokhin 517 is a scarce type by any measure.