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Hekte
| Issuer | Mytilene |
|---|---|
| Year | 521 BC - 478 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Incuse head of a rooster facing left, struck in sunken relief within a square or slightly irregular incuse punch, a hallmark of early Archaic electrum coinage technique. The comb, wattle, and feathering of the bird's neck are rendered with fine granular and linear detail, demonstrating considerable skill in miniature die engraving. The eye is clearly defined and the beak is slightly open. No legend or inscription is present in the field. |
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| Mint | Mytilene (Lesbos) |
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| Additional information |
Mytilene's electrum hektes were struck in a long-running civic coinage program that persisted for roughly two centuries, with each emission pairing a new obverse type against a simpler incuse reverse — a production convention that makes individual emissions datable by type sequence rather than by inscription or magistrate name. The naturally occurring electrum used in the earliest issues, drawn from Lydian river sources, carries a gold-to-silver ratio that varies measurably across emissions, complicating modern die studies.
Bodenstedt's 1981 monograph remains the authoritative reference for this series, organizing over 100 emissions with a precision that earlier catalogs like the BMC could not achieve.