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Drachm
| Issuer | Euhesperides |
|---|---|
| Year | 480 BC - 435 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Orientation | Variable alignment ↺ |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A dolphin depicted diagonally to the right occupies the centre of a shallow incuse square, its body rendered with characteristic archaic simplicity. A silphion fruit is placed above the dolphin within the incuse. The ethnic legend EY in large archaic Greek letters appears in the lower portion of the incuse square, serving as an abbreviated civic identifier for the issuing city of Euhesperides. The entire reverse design is contained within the recessed incuse square, a hallmark of early Greek silver coinage technique. |
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| Mintage | ND (480 BC - 435 BC) |
| Additional information |
Euhesperides was a Cyrenaican Greek colony on the Libyan coast — the site is modern Benghazi — that maintained a precarious existence between the expanding Carthaginian sphere to the west and the Cyrenaean Greeks to the east. The city was eventually abandoned entirely around 249 BC when its population relocated to the newly founded Berenice nearby. Coinage attributed to Euhesperides is extraordinarily rare; the BMC Greek records only a handful of specimens, and the Boston MFA piece remains one of the principal reference examples for the type.