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!
Drachm
| Issuer | Tenedos |
|---|---|
| Year | 100 BC - 70 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Silver |
| 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 | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | A double-headed axe (labrys) at centre, its long shaft extending vertically across the field, flanked in the lower quarters by two small standing figures — a male figure to the left and another to the right — with a bunch of grapes suspended between them below the axe head. The legend TENEΔIΩN is inscribed horizontally above the axe head. The entire design is encircled by an olive wreath border, a hallmark of late Hellenistic Tenedian coinage. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | TENEΔIΩN |
| 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 near the entrance to the Hellespont, controlled access to one of the ancient world's most strategically critical shipping lanes. Its coinage from this period reflects the island's persistent autonomy despite immense pressure from successive Hellenistic powers and, increasingly, Rome. The drachm series to which this piece belongs was catalogued by Callataÿ as part of a refined die study that established a tighter chronology than earlier scholarship had allowed.
Production fell precisely within the decades when Roman influence over the Aegean was consolidating after the wars with Mithridates VI of Pontus — a turbulent window in which many island mints either ceased production or dramatically reduced output.