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!
Hemidrachm
| Issuer | Tanagra |
|---|---|
| Year | 500 BC - 480 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| 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 | Facing head of a Boeotian bull rendered in archaic style, depicted frontally with prominent horns curving outward to either side. The bovine head fills the flan, with the muzzle, nostrils, and eyes rendered in low relief characteristic of early fifth-century Boeotian coinage. The surface is slightly irregular, consistent with the hand-struck hammered technique of the period. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Incuse square divided into four triangular sections by diagonal lines meeting at the centre, forming a windmill or quadripartite pattern typical of archaic Greek coinage. The incuse punch is deeply impressed and roughly square in form, with each triangular quadrant showing slightly raised surfaces against the recessed field. This reverse type is characteristic of early Boeotian silver coinage of the late Archaic period. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Tanagra's coinage from this period belongs to a Boeotian tradition that preceded full integration into the Boeotian League's federal coinage system. The city maintained its own autonomous issues into the early fifth century, and hemidrachms of this type are among the last expressions of that independence before regional monetary consolidation gathered force after the Persian Wars.
BMC Greek 4 is a well-documented type, but surviving examples are scarce — Tanagra never produced coinage at the volume of Thebes or Corinth.