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Tetradrachm
| Issuer | Athens |
|---|---|
| Year | 165 BC - 148 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Obverse description | Helmeted head of Athena Parthenos in right profile, wearing a single-pendant earring and necklace. The elaborate Attic helmet is triple-crested and decorated with the foreparts of four horses arrayed above the visor, a Pegasus in flight to the right above the raised cheek-piece, and a curvilinear vegetal ornament on the bowl. The portrait is rendered in the fine late Classical Athenian style, with carefully detailed facial features and flowing locks of hair visible beneath the helmet. |
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| Reverse description | Owl standing to right with head facing forward, perched atop an amphora. The ethnic A-ΘΕ is inscribed across the upper field, flanked by two control monograms in the central field, and a grain ear appears to the lower right. The entire design is enclosed within an olive wreath, a hallmark of the New Style Athenian coinage of the second century BC, with the amphora serving as a control symbol identifying the specific magistrate issue. |
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| Additional information |
These so-called "New Style" tetradrachms replaced Athens' archaic "owl" coinage around 165 BC following a fundamental restructuring of the city's monetary administration. Magistrates' names and symbols now appeared on each issue, making them among the most precisely attributable Greek coins in existence — Thompson's monumental 1961 study catalogued hundreds of distinct annual issues from die combinations alone.
The timing was not accidental. Macedonian power had collapsed after Pydna in 168 BC, and Athens seized the moment to reassert commercial relevance across the Aegean. The coinage circulated widely enough to be found in hoards from Egypt to the Black Sea.