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Hemiobol
| Issuer | Akanthos |
|---|---|
| Year | 490 BC - 480 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Hemiobol (1⁄12) |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Quadripartite incuse square of mill-sail or skew type, divided by raised ridges into four recessed triangular compartments, produced by the punch of the die struck into the plain silver flan. The incuse is deeply impressed and irregular in outline, consistent with early archaic hammered coinage technique. No legend or additional device is present. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Akanthos, a Chalkidian colony on the Athos peninsula, issued coinage primarily to service trade through one of the northern Aegean's busiest corridors. The city's name — and its coins — would later gain grim historical footnote when Xerxes chose the Akanthos isthmus as the site for his canal in 480 BC, dug to spare the Persian fleet the dangerous rounding of Mount Athos. Local labor was conscripted; the city fed the workforce.
At this fractional weight, these were everyday transaction pieces, not prestige issues. The SNG Lockett specimen passed through one of the great early twentieth-century British collections before dispersal at Glendining's in 1955.