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!
Nomos
| Issuer | Tarentum |
|---|---|
| Year | 510 BC - 450 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Nomos (2) |
| 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 | Nude male figure, identified as Taras the eponymous hero or a youth, depicted riding a dolphin to the right in dynamic pose, his upper body turned and one arm raised. The figure is rendered in the Archaic style with strong musculature and lively movement. A legend in Ancient Greek characters appears partially in the field. The dolphin is shown in profile beneath the rider, conveying the mythological foundation narrative of Tarentum. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | TAPAΣ |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| 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 |
Tarentum was the only Spartan colonial foundation in Magna Graecia, established around 706 BC by a group of Partheniai — men of disputed citizen status whose exact origins were already a subject of controversy among ancient writers. That marginal political identity seems to have translated early on into an assertive coinage program, with Tarentum producing some of the earliest and most technically ambitious incuse-style silver in the western Greek world. The nomos denomination anchored the city's commercial relationships with indigenous Italic peoples and rival Greek colonies across the heel of the Italian peninsula.
The SNG Ashmolean 796 reference places this piece within the archaic series, before Tarentum's coinage shifted toward the more developed horseman types of the fifth century.