Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Didrachm
| Issuer | Tenedos |
|---|---|
| Year | 550 BC - 490 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Didrachm (2) |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Janiform (double-faced) head in archaic style: the left face is that of a bearded male oriented to the left, the right face that of a female oriented to the right. Both faces display the characteristic archaic almond-shaped eyes rendered in frontal view. Each wears a stephane (diadem crown) and shares a disc earring decorated with a rosette motif and a double-curved pendant drop. A necklace of pearls is depicted beneath the paired heads, uniting the two visages within a single composition. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Ancient Greek |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Tenedos, a small Aegean island just off the Troad coast, controlled a strategically vital anchorage on the main sailing route between the Aegean and the Black Sea. That position — not any agricultural or mineral wealth — is what funded coinage here. Ships waited at Tenedos for favorable winds through the Hellespont, and the island's mint served that transient maritime economy directly.
The BMC Greek 8 reference places this among the earlier emissions of the series, prior to Persian consolidation of the eastern Aegean following Darius's campaigns of the 490s.