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Pfennig anonymous Brixen

Issuer Duchy of Merania (Austrian States)
Year 1170-1180
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Technique Hammered
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Obverse description Schematized frontal head or face in low relief, enclosed within a beaded inner circle, the whole surrounded by four outward-arching lobes or arches forming a quatrefoil frame. Small decorative elements, possibly stylized busts or foliate motifs, are positioned between each arch. The design is characteristic of the crude, anonymous bracteate-influenced coinage of the Bishopric of Brixen in the late Romanesque period, with strongly abstracted facial features rendered in a flat, primitive style.
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Edge Plain
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Additional information

Brixen — now Bressanone in South Tyrol — sat at a critical Alpine crossing point, and its bishops had exercised mint rights since the eleventh century. The Duchy of Merania itself was a fragmented, geographically peculiar entity, its territories scattered across what is now Bavaria, Istria, and the eastern Alps rather than forming any coherent territorial block. Dating anonymous bracteate-influenced pfennigs from this region to a decade-level window relies almost entirely on comparative die studies and hoard evidence, as no documentary mint records survive from Brixen for this period.