Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Stater
| Issuer | Melos |
|---|---|
| Year | 425 BC - 415 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 14.21 g |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | An oinochoe (wine jug) depicted in profile at center, rendered in high relief with clearly articulated handle, narrow neck, and bulbous body tapering to a pointed base. The vessel is centrally placed within the field, which bears a granular or hatched incuse border suggesting a dotted or beaded circle. The design is characteristic of the archaic civic coinage of Melos, employing the oinochoe as the island's primary obverse type. The retrograde ethnic inscription MAΛICN appears in the field in Greek characters. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | MAΛICN |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Melos maintained its independence and its mint through the early years of the Peloponnesian War, but the island's fate was sealed in 416 BC when Athens, frustrated by Melian neutrality, besieged and took the city. The men were executed, the women and children enslaved — an event Thucydides recorded in the Melian Dialogue. Staters struck in the decade before that destruction are, by definition, among the final products of this mint.
Jameson 1300 is a tightly defined reference point for this series, placing this piece within a small corpus of authenticated Melian silver.