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Stater
| Issuer | Aegina |
|---|---|
| Year | 550 BC - 525 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Sea turtle depicted in high relief, viewed from above, centrally placed within the field. The creature is rendered without a collar, with a nearly smooth, undecorated carapace and a prominently modeled head. The four flippers are summarily indicated at the sides of the body, and a segmented tail projects at the base. The naturalistic yet stylized rendering is characteristic of the archaic Aeginetan coinage tradition, which used the sea turtle as the principal civic emblem. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Incuse square divided into eight triangular sections by raised ridges meeting at the center, producing the characteristic skew or 'Union Jack' pattern. Several of the resulting compartments are partially filled with incuse relief, lending a sunken, multi-faceted appearance to the reverse. This deeply impressed incuse punch is typical of early Aeginetan staters and served as a countermark confirming the coin's silver content and civic guarantee. No inscriptions or figural devices are present. |
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| Additional information |
Aegina was the first Greek polis to strike silver coinage, and these staters — among the earliest coins to circulate widely across the Mediterranean — were the dominant trade currency of the Aegean before Athens flooded the market with its own owls. The "Aeginetan standard," with its ~12.2g weight norm, became the accepted measure for commercial transactions across the Peloponnese, Boeotia, and much of the Cyclades for over a century.
Herodotus singles out Aeginetan commercial power repeatedly, and the island's merchant fleet made these coins genuinely international. The type was struck so consistently over generations that precise dating within the archaic series remains contested — Milbank's 1925 monograph remains the foundational attempt to sequence the die varieties.