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Hekte Ionia or Northern Greece
| Issuer | Uncertain Greek city |
|---|---|
| Year | 600 BC - 550 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Electrum |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
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| Technique | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | A scorpion rendered in high relief, depicted frontally with its segmented body, prominent claws raised symmetrically to either side, and multiple legs extending outward across the flan. The creature occupies the full field of the coin, its carapace and appendages boldly modeled in the archaic Greek style characteristic of early electrum coinage. The flan is irregular and slightly convex, with no inscription or border. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | An irregular incuse square, deeply impressed into the reverse flan by the punch used during striking. The square is divided by raised ridges into two or more irregular compartments, a hallmark of early archaic Greek hammered coinage technique. The surface within the incuse shows uneven texture with no deliberate design, inscription, or device, consistent with the primitive punch method employed in the earliest electrum coinages of Ionia and the northern Aegean region. |
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| Additional information |
Electrum hektes of this period predate the invention of coinage by a comfortable margin in some scholarly frameworks — the debate over whether Lydia or the Greek Ionian cities deserve credit for striking the first coins remains unresolved, and pieces like this one sit at the center of that argument. The alloy itself was often naturally occurring electron from the Paktolus River, whose gold-bearing sands made western Anatolia the logical birthplace of coined money.