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Tetradrachm Wangenschnecke Type
| Issuer | Dacians of Transylvania |
|---|---|
| Year | 250 BC - 201 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Reverse description | Stylized horseman and horse composition derived from the reverse of Philip II of Macedon tetradrachms, heavily abstracted in the Celtic tradition. The rider and mount are rendered as interlocking organic forms, the horse's body fragmented into bold, rounded lobes that fill the flan in a swirling arrangement. The rider's figure is schematically indicated above the horse's back, merging with the animal's neck in a fluid, near-calligraphic manner. No charioteer, legend, or subsidiary symbols are legible; the design is entirely aniconic in its late stage of stylistic devolution. The overall composition displays the characteristic Dacian reduction of figural motifs to near-abstract, deeply sculpted relief. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
The Wangenschnecke ("cheek-snail") types represent a late phase of Danubian Celtic silver coinage in which the original Macedonian tetradrachm prototype — absorbed through trade and mercenary contact with the Hellenistic world — had been so thoroughly abstracted over successive generations of local die-cutting that the source imagery became nearly unrecognizable. This particular branch of that degeneration is attributed to the Dacian populations of the Carpathian interior rather than to the more westerly Celtic groups, a distinction that matters for provenance but remains debated in the literature.
Göbl's sequencing places this variety relatively early within the Transylvanian series, before the most extreme stylistic dissolution.