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 | Ainos (Thrace) |
|---|---|
| Year | 431 BC - 429 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| 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 | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | A he-goat, the civic emblem of Ainos, rendered in high relief standing to the right in a naturalistic and vigorous pose, its head lowered, long curved horns swept back, and a prominent beard visible beneath the muzzle. To the lower left of the animal stands a labrys (double-headed axe), serving as a secondary symbol in the field. The abbreviated ethnic legend ΑΙΝ appears in the upper field above the goat's back. The entire composition is contained within a shallow incuse square, the standard reverse format for major Thracian silver coinage of this period. |
| 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 |
Ainos was a prosperous Aeolian colony at the mouth of the Hebros River, and its silver coinage of the 430s BC falls squarely within the disruption of the Peloponnesian War — a conflict that throttled Aegean trade routes and forced many Thracian coastal cities to assert commercial identity through their coinage more aggressively than before. The city's position gave it unusual leverage: control of the river mouth meant toll income and grain transit, which funded the mint.
The May corpus remains the authoritative die study for this series. May #114 represents a relatively tight chronological window of no more than two to three years of production.