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Tetradrachm

Issuer Dacians of Banat
Year 300 BC - 101 BC
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Reference(s) Göbl Kelt#72, Dembski#1047-1050
Obverse description Stylized laureate head of Zeus facing right, rendered in the abstracted Celtic artistic tradition derived from Macedonian Philippic prototypes. The laureate wreath is depicted as a series of bold, rounded pellets and elongated curvilinear elements framing the head. The facial features are strongly schematized, with a prominent eye rendered as a raised pellet, a fleshy nose, and a subtly modeled jaw. The hair falls in deeply engraved, sweeping parallel locks behind the neck. The overall treatment reflects progressive Celtic abstraction of the original Hellenic type.
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Reverse lettering Π ΙΙΙ
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Additional information

Dacian silver tetradrachms of the Banat region are Celtic-influenced imitations that progressively abstracted their Macedonian prototype — Philip II's posthumous coinage — through successive die generations until the original imagery became almost unrecognizable. This degeneration was not carelessness but a natural consequence of copying copies, each celator working from the last local issue rather than any Greek original. The Banat grouping specifically reflects production by communities in what is now southwestern Romania and northern Serbia, operating entirely outside Greek monetary infrastructure.

Göbl's classification system identified distinct die lineages within this series, and the Dembski range of 1047–1050 captures a narrow typological cluster within a much broader regional output that spanned two centuries of intermittent striking.