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Tetradrachm - Lysimachus Lampsacus

Issuer Kings of Thrace
Year 297 BC - 281 BC
Type Standard circulation coin
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Obverse description Diademed head of the deified Alexander the Great facing right, depicted wearing the ram's horn of Ammon curling behind the ear, a prominent divine attribute asserting his divine lineage. The portrait displays finely rendered wavy hair swept back from the forehead in the characteristic Hellenistic style, with a dotted border encircling the flan. The effigy is executed with confident, high-relief engraving typical of the finest Hellenistic die-cutting, conveying idealized heroic beauty. No legend appears on the obverse, the portrait alone serving as the regal and divine statement of authority.
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Mint Lampsacus
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Additional information

Lysimachus struck these tetradrachms at Lampsacus — a strategically vital mint city on the Hellespont — during the period when he was consolidating control over Asia Minor following the fragmentation of Alexander's empire. The Lampsacus mint had already served the Macedonian administration for decades, and Lysimachus exploited that infrastructure aggressively. His kingdom collapsed entirely at the Battle of Corupedium in 281 BC, when Seleucus I defeated and killed him, ending Thracian royal coinage at source. Posthumous issues using identical types continued circulating for generations, which makes attribution of any given specimen to the lifetime issues versus posthumous production a genuinely contested scholarly problem.

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