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Tetradrachm
| Issuer | Ainos |
|---|---|
| Year | 405 BC - 356 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Drachm |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Facing head of Hermes rendered in fine archaic-to-classical style, depicted full face with large almond-shaped eyes and wavy hair arranged symmetrically about the temples. The god wears a petasos pushed back from the forehead, its rim visible as a beaded band across the crown. Curling locks fall in symmetrical waves along either side of the face, framing the features with characteristic Thracian-mint artistry. The portrait fills the flan in an imposing, frontal composition typical of the high-quality die-cutting associated with Ainos in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Ainos — a Thracian coastal city at the mouth of the Hebros river — controlled access to lucrative inland trade routes and maintained enough commercial autonomy to strike some of the finest silver coinage in the northern Aegean throughout the fifth and fourth centuries. The city's output shrank dramatically after the Macedonian expansion under Philip II brought the region under tighter control, which brackets the later end of this series with some precision.
May's corpus remains the authoritative die study for Ainos coinage. References 415–416 within his classification correspond to a well-documented emission grouping, with the 3.2 / 1278 cross-reference indicating a specific die pairing traceable across surviving specimens in European collections.