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Chalkon
| Issuer | Dioskourias |
|---|---|
| Year | 105 BC - 90 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A tall, upright thyrsus or military standard — depicted as a slender staff with a pointed, leaf-like finial — occupies the central vertical axis of the reverse field. The Greek ethnic inscription ΔΙΟΣΚΟΥΡΙΑΔΟΣ is distributed symmetrically in two columns flanking the central device, reading from upper left to lower right across the field. The bold, well-spaced Greek letters are characteristic of late Hellenistic civic epigraphy. The field is plain, with no exergue line or additional decorative elements. |
| Reverse script | Greek |
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| Additional information |
Dioskourias was a Greek colonial city on the eastern Black Sea coast — in what is now Sukhumi, Abkhazia — founded by Milesian traders and named after the Dioskouroi, the divine twins of Greek myth. By the late second century BC, the city was minting its own bronze small change while simultaneously entangled in the volatile politics of Pontic expansion under Mithridates VI, who absorbed the region into his kingdom around this period. Whether this chalkon circulated freely or was quickly displaced by Pontic royal issues is an open question.