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Obole à l'hippocampe de Ruscino
| Issuer | Sordones |
|---|---|
| Year | 200 BC - 100 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | 9.5 mm |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A hippocampus (sea-horse) depicted in schematic form occupying the central field, rendered with a rounded equine head and a fish-tail body curving downward. To the left of the creature a small circular pellet with a surrounding ring serves as an additional decorative or symbolic element. The overall composition is sparse and characteristic of the abbreviated iconographic style employed on small-module Celtic silver fractions of southern Gaul and the northeastern Iberian coastline. No legend is present. The flan is irregular and slightly convex. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Ruscino — modern Château-Roussillon near Perpignan — was the principal oppidum of the Sordones, a pre-Roman people of the Roussillon plain whose coinage borrowed heavily from Massaliot monetary conventions while remaining distinctly local. The hippocampe type circulated in the lower Languedoc and Roussillon as small-denomination silver during a period of intense commercial contact between indigenous tribes and Greek coastal traders, well before Roman administrative consolidation of the region under the province of Gallia Narbonensis after 118 BC.
The CNH variant designation signals meaningful die differences from the principal type — Feugère and Py's corpus remains the indispensable reference for distinguishing Sordonan issues from the broader Iberian and Gaulish obole traditions that overlap geographically.