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Stater
| Issuer | Smyrna |
|---|---|
| Year | 600 BC - 550 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Stylized lion's head facing left, rendered in the bold, schematic Archaic Greek manner characteristic of early Ionian coinage. The facial features — including the large, prominent eye with a raised circular pupil, the broad muzzle with incised wrinkles, and the open jaw with tongue protruding — are rendered in high relief with vigorous plasticity. The mane is suggested by radiating incised striations along the lower right portion of the flan. The design fills the irregularly shaped hammered flan, with no legend or inscription present. |
|---|---|
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Smyrna's gold staters from this period sit at the very beginning of Western coinage history, produced in Lydia's commercial orbit at a moment when struck coin was still a novelty technology. The city's output was almost certainly tied to trade along the Aegean coast rather than state fiscal needs — the early Lydian and Ionian issues circulated as commodity money by weight before any standardized monetary system existed.
The BMC 39 attribution places this among a small, closely studied group. Survivors in any condition are genuinely rare; most known examples passed through 19th-century excavations with incomplete provenance.