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Nomos
| Issuer | Metapontion |
|---|---|
| Year | 330 BC - 290 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A large, finely detailed ear of barley displayed upright in the centre of the field, its grains rendered in high relief with precise naturalistic detail, flanked on the left by a small figure of a griffin crouching on a serpentine vine stalk with a curling tendril below. The ethnic legend ΜΕΤΑ appears vertically to the right of the ear, and the magistrate's letters ΛY are inscribed to the lower left of the stalk, serving as a die-sinker's or magistrate's mark. The reverse reflects Metapontion's renowned tradition of the barley-ear type, emblematic of the city's agricultural prosperity. |
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| Mint | Metapontion (Lucania) |
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| Additional information |
Metapontion sat in the heart of Magna Graecia's grain belt, and its coinage reflects that dependence with unusual consistency across centuries of production. By the late fourth century, the city was navigating the turbulent aftermath of the Oscan incursions that had destabilized much of Lucania, and mint output appears to have contracted accordingly. The HN Italy 1589 type falls within a well-documented magistrate series, where controlling officials placed their names on the coinage — a practice that allows die-linkage studies to reconstruct approximate sequencing even without ancient literary sources confirming dates.
Metapontion was abandoned by the late third century BC, making this among the final phases of a mint active for over three hundred years.