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Diobol - Protes
| Issuer | Abdera |
|---|---|
| Year | 395 BC - 360 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Technique | Hammered, Incuse |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Head of a bull facing left, rendered within a shallow incuse square, a hallmark of early Thracian civic coinage. The magistrate's name ΠΡΩΤΗΣ (Protes) is inscribed in Greek letters arranged around the bull's head within the incuse border. The design reflects the standard reverse type adopted by Abdera during the late fifth and early fourth centuries BC, associating civic authority with the magistrate's name. |
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| Mint | Abdera (Thrace) |
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| Additional information |
Abdera, the Thracian coastal colony founded by Teos refugees in the mid-sixth century, organized its silver coinage around a rotating magistracy system in which an annually appointed civic official — the protes — had his name struck onto the issue. This makes each Abderan coin a datable administrative document as much as a monetary object, and the referenced May type sits within a sequence that numismatists have used to reconstruct the city's magistrate lists for the first half of the fourth century.
The city's prosperity during this period owed much to its position on Thracian trade routes and its control of timber and slave commerce. Abdera was also the birthplace of Democritus, whose atomic philosophy was being formulated in precisely these decades.