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Stater
| Issuer | Knossos |
|---|---|
| Year | 440 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | The Minotaur (Asterion), depicted as a bull-headed male figure in a kneeling-running pose (knielauf) to right, with the head turned to face the viewer. The muscular humanoid body is rendered in archaic relief, with the right arm raised and the left arm extended. The figure occupies the full field of the flan, with no legend or inscription present. |
|---|---|
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Knossos resumed autonomous coinage in the fifth century BC despite — or perhaps because of — its complicated relationship with Cretan federal politics. The city never joined the Cretan koinon on equal terms and used its own silver issues partly to assert that independence. This early stater type, catalogued as the first in both Svoronos and the British Museum corpus, anchors the entire chronology of Knossian coinage and has informed most subsequent die studies of the series.