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!
Tetradrachm
| Issuer | Side |
|---|---|
| Year | 205 BC - 100 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Tetradrachm (4) |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| 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 | Helmeted head of Athena in right profile, wearing a crested Corinthian helmet pushed back to reveal the face, with flowing locks of hair visible beneath the cheekpieces. The modeling of the face is rendered in a confident Hellenistic style, with well-defined brow and prominent nose. The cheek guards of the helmet are raised, and the high transverse crest is clearly articulated. The field is plain, with no legend or inscription. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Plain |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Side, a prosperous port city on the Pamphylian coast, operated one of the more prolific mints in southern Anatolia during the second and first centuries BC, striking silver on the Attic weight standard to facilitate trade across the eastern Mediterranean. The city maintained effective autonomy through much of this period, navigating Seleucid, Pergamene, and eventually Roman spheres of influence without losing its civic coinage privileges — an unusual degree of monetary independence for a city of its size and geography.
Side also had a documented connection to the slave trade, with its harbor serving as a major transshipment point during the height of Cilician piracy in the second century BC. Whether mint revenues were directly entangled with that commerce is debated, but the volume of coinage produced here tracks closely with that period of peak regional activity.