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Hexas

Issuer Morgantina
Year 339 BC - 317 BC
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Weight 3.13 g
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Obverse description Laureate head of Alkos facing right, rendered with flowing wavy hair and a laurel wreath, displaying characteristically Siceliot engraving style of the late fourth century BC. The portrait is boldly modeled in high relief with well-defined facial features including a prominent nose and chin. The flan is bordered by a dotted beaded border visible along the right and lower periphery of the field.
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Mint Morgantina
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Additional information

Morgantina's civic coinage belongs to a city whose Greek identity was violently interrupted. In 211 BC the Romans sacked Morgantina and handed it to Spanish mercenaries who had fought for Scipio — an unusual settlement that effectively ended its Sikel-Greek urban character. The hexas, struck generations before that end, reflects a moment when the city still operated as a functioning polis with enough commercial confidence to produce fractional bronze for local exchange.

The hexas denomination represents two twelfths of an as in the Sicilian bronze system — a genuinely small unit, produced for real everyday transactions rather than prestige.