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!
Diobol Gorgippia
| Issuer | Sindi |
|---|---|
| Year | 400 BC - 350 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 1.39 g |
| 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 | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Forepart of a horse's head facing right, rendered with naturalistic anatomical detail including a clearly articulated mane, pricked ears, large eye, and bridle bit visible at the mouth, all set within a shallow incuse square border. The Greek ethnic legend ΣΙΝΔΩΝ appears along the upper edge of the incuse square, serving as the ethnic identifier of the issuing Sindi people. The horse motif held particular cultural significance among the Sindi, a Maeotian tribe of the Taman Peninsula renowned for their equestrian tradition. The die engraving is confident and well-centred, consistent with the coinage attributed to the mint at Gorgippia. The incuse square field surrounding the horse's head is lightly polished and largely plain. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Gorgippia |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
The Sindi were a people of the eastern Pontic steppe, settled around the Taman Peninsula at the mouth of the Kuban River — close enough to the Bosporan Kingdom to fall within its commercial and political orbit, yet distinct enough to issue their own coinage. Gorgippia, the city that gives this diobol its name, was later absorbed outright into the Bosporan state, renamed after the Spartocid dynast Gorgippos around 380 BC. Whether this issue predates or overlaps that absorption remains debated among specialists.
The Sindi coinage is among the rarest provincial issues from the entire Black Sea region.