Silver 2 1/2 Asses Male head series II: pentagrams

Populonia, the only Etruscan city known to have minted coins directly from locally smelted iron-ore slag, produced this fractional silver piece during a period when the city's mint output was driven almost entirely by the demands of mercenary payment and inter-city trade along the Tyrrhenian coast. The pentagram devices on this series have been interpreted as possible guild or magistrate marks, though no consensus exists on their precise administrative function.

By the early second century BC, Roman encroachment had effectively ended Populonian monetary independence.