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Didrachm
| Issuer | Selinos |
|---|---|
| Year | 540 BC - 515 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | A selinon (wild parsley) leaf occupies the central field, rendered in a naturalistic early archaic style. Two pellets are positioned above the leaf, while two further pellets flank the base of the stem, the arrangement of leaf tip and pellets evoking a schematic animal face. The design fills the flan without inscription or border, characteristic of the earliest coinage of Selinos. |
|---|---|
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Selinos — the westernmost Greek colony in Sicily — chose the wild celery plant (selinon) as its civic emblem, a plant so abundant along the local river that the city took its name from it. These early didrachms predate the city's catastrophic destruction by Carthage in 409 BC by over a century, placing them in Selinos's period of maximum prosperity, when it was aggressively expanding its territory at the expense of indigenous Elymian and Sicel populations.
The archaic fabric here is characteristic of early Sicilian mint output — broad, dumpy flans with incuse reverse punches that would give way to the more sophisticated die work of the fifth century.