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!
Onkia
| Issuer | Himera (Sicily) |
|---|---|
| Year | 425 BC - 409 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Bronze |
| 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 | Facing gorgoneion rendered in archaic style, filling the flan; the apotropaic mask displays wide-set almond-shaped eyes with raised pupils, a broad flat nose, and an open grinning mouth with visible teeth, framed by coiling serpentine locks of hair radiating around the periphery. The deeply modelled relief conveys the characteristic apotropaic intensity associated with Sicilian coinage of this period. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Plain |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Himera's bronze coinage of this period was struck in the decades following the city's dramatic role in the 480 BC battle against Carthage — a victory celebrated across the Greek world. The onkia, worth one-twelfth of a litra, represents Himera's attempt to sustain a functioning small-denomination economy in bronze, a relatively new monetary technology for Sicilian Greek cities at the time.
The city never struck another coin after 409 BC. That year, Hannibal Mago's Carthaginian forces razed Himera entirely, massacring a large portion of its population in reprisal for the 480 defeat — a generational vendetta fulfilled in fire.