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Denier Bracteate - Ottokar II
| Issuer | Kingdom of Bohemia |
|---|---|
| Year | 1253-1260 |
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| Value | 1 Denier |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Frontal bust of a crowned ruler, wearing a radiate or foliate crown, depicted in high relief characteristic of bracteate coinage. The figure is shown from the waist up, draped, with both arms extended laterally, each hand grasping a heraldic lily or fleur-de-lis sceptre. The design is contained within a raised inner circle, with the thin silver flan exhibiting the typical convex profile of a struck bracteate. No legend is present; the composition is purely figural in the Romanesque-Gothic transitional style. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Uniface bracteate; the reverse is blank and displays only the incuse mirror image of the obverse design impressed through the thin silver flan during the striking process, as is standard for this coinageform. No inscriptions, devices, or deliberate design elements are present on this side. |
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| Additional information |
Ottokar II came to the Bohemian throne in 1253 following the death of his father Wenceslaus I, and these thin-flan bracteates belong to the earliest phase of his reign — before his dramatic territorial expansion into Austria, Styria, and Carinthia transformed him into one of the most powerful rulers in Central Europe. Bracteate coinage of this type was a distinctly Central European phenomenon, produced by hammering silver so thin that the die impression on one face ghosted through as a mirror image on the other.
Cach 771 is among the more precisely attributed pieces in the Bohemian bracteate sequence, a series notoriously difficult to assign on the basis of stylistic analysis alone.