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Hemidrachm
| Issuer | Olbia |
|---|---|
| Year | 320 BC - 280 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Shape | Round (irregular) |
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| Obverse description | Bust of Demeter facing left, her hair dressed and bound with a wreath of grain ears rendered in low relief. The modelling of the face is typical of the late Classical Greek style, with curling locks framing the cheek and neck. The flan is irregular, as characteristic of this early Olbian gold coinage, with the design occupying the majority of the field. |
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| Reverse script | Greek |
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| Additional information |
Olbia's gold issues from this period are anomalous — the city's monetary output was overwhelmingly bronze and silver, with gold struck only in exceptional circumstances, most likely tied to specific diplomatic payments or mercenary obligations rather than general commerce. The colony's precarious position between Scythian pressure from the interior and Macedonian influence filtering through the northern Black Sea littoral made extraordinary expenditure plausible during exactly these decades.
Anokhin's die study places this hemidrachm within a tightly constrained emission, and the concordance across four major reference corpora suggests survivors are tracked individually.