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 In the name of Alexander III, Erythrai
| Issuer | Kingdom of Macedonia |
|---|---|
| Year | 215 BC - 190 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 | Right-facing portrait of Herakles in three-quarter relief, wearing the lion-skin headdress with the scalp knotted beneath the chin, the mane rendered in flowing locks framing the face. The musculature of the neck and shoulder is boldly articulated in the Hellenistic style. A beaded border runs along the upper periphery of the flan. The portrait follows the canonical Alexandrine type established at the Macedonian royal mint and widely adopted by successor and civic mints throughout the Greek world. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Zeus Aëtophoros seated left on a throne with a high back, his torso bare and his lower body draped, extending his right arm forward to present an eagle perched with wings spread, while his left hand rests upon a tall sceptre. In the left field, two control symbols are visible — rendered as vase-like objects stacked vertically. The ethnic ΕΡΥ appears in the lower left field, identifying the mint city of Erythrai, and the additional control letters ΙΣΟ are inscribed in the exergue. The royal legend ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ runs vertically down the right field. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Struck at Erythrai on the Ionian coast, this posthumous Alexander tetradrachm belongs to a civic minting tradition that continued for over a century after Alexander's death in 323 BC. The city issued in his name not out of loyalty to any Macedonian successor but because the Alexander type had become the dominant trade currency of the eastern Aegean — rejecting it would have been commercial suicide. The Mektepini reference ties this specifically to a die study of the local series, distinguishing Erythraean output from the flood of similar posthumous issues produced across Asia Minor during the same decades.