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!
Trihemiobol
| Issuer | Knidos |
|---|---|
| Year | 500 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 1.75 g |
| 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 | Forepart of a roaring lion's head facing right, rendered in bold archaic relief with deeply incised mane striations radiating from the neck. The open jaws reveal the tongue, and the eye is rendered as a prominent raised orb, characteristic of the archaic Greek style. The design fills the flan without a border or legend. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Plain |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Knidos occupied a strategically awkward position at the tip of the Carian peninsula, and its early coinage reflects the city's orientation toward Aegean trade rather than inland Anatolia. The trihemiobol denomination — three half-obols — was a genuinely practical unit for small commercial transactions in port economies where fractional silver moved constantly between sailors, merchants, and harbor traders.
Cahn's die study remains the authoritative reference for archaic Knidian issues, and the specimen numbers cited here place this piece firmly in the earliest phase of the city's coinage, predating the Persian administrative pressures that would later reshape mint output along the coast.