Catalog
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| Issuer | Abydos |
|---|---|
| Year | 80 BC - 70 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Tetradrachm (4) |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Greek |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | An eagle with wings spread stands facing right, serving as the central type. The ethnic legend ABYΔHNΩN arcs above, while the magistrate's name IΦIAΔOY appears in the lower field. To the right, a radiate head of Helios faces right, accompanied by a star above it in the right field. The entire composition is enclosed within a laurel wreath, a characteristic framing device of Abydene civic coinage of the late Hellenistic period. |
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| Additional information |
Abydos, the strategically critical Hellespontine city controlling the narrowest point of the strait, had a long history of issuing civic coinage — but by the first century BC, autonomous silver production in this region was becoming increasingly constrained by Roman commercial dominance and the disruptions of the Mithridatic Wars. This tetradrachm, issued under the magistrate Iphiades, belongs to a late civic series struck when such locally-authorized issues were already a fading practice across much of western Asia Minor.
The magistrate-name series at Abydos is documented across a relatively small corpus, with individual named issues sometimes represented by only a handful of specimens across major collections.