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Silver 20 Asses Gorgoneion series II: crossed lines
| Issuer | Populonia |
|---|---|
| Year | 301 BC - 206 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Reference(s) | Vecchi-II#32, HN Italy#151, EC 1#58, SambonArt#42, SNG Firenze 2#182, BMC Gr/It#6, GCV#275 |
| Obverse description | Facing frontal Gorgoneion (Metus) depicted in archaic style, with wild flowing serpentine hair radiating from the head, wide-open staring eyes, a broad flat nose, and a protruding tongue issuing from an open mouth with prominent fangs. The face fills the flan within a beaded border. The denomination mark 'XX' appears in the lower field, flanking the chin, indicating the value of 20 Asses. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Plain, unadorned reverse bearing an incuse pattern of crossed lines forming a rough grid or hashtag design across the entire field, a characteristic feature of this emission of Populonian silver coinage. The surface is irregular and flat, typical of hammered flan preparation, with no legend or additional device present. |
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| Additional information |
Populonia was the only Etruscan city to strike its own coinage directly from locally smelted ore — iron workings on Elba fed both the furnaces and, indirectly, the mint. The crossed-lines reverse of this series has been interpreted as a die control mark used to distinguish emission batches, a practice that implies a more organized mint bureaucracy than Populonia's modest civic scale might suggest.
Production of the heavier 20-as denominations appears to have wound down well before Rome's final absorption of Etruscan political independence, leaving the later end of this date range somewhat speculative.