The New York Sale
Auction 30 9 January 2013
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ANCIENT COINS. GREEK. Spain, Balearic Islands, Ebusus (3rd Century B.C.), Silver Hemidrachm, 2.49g, 4h. Squatting Bes facing, holding a mace and a serpent. Rev. Bull walking left (SNG Copenhagen 85). Lightly toned over a few old scratches, minor porosity on reverse, a bold and well-detailed Bes, very fine. Very rare.
Ex Bruun Rasmussen Auction 774, Copenhagen, 13 June 2007, lot 5625
APopulated by Phoenicians, Ebusus was a close ally of Carthage. Barclay Head believed that its silver coinage was likely to have been contemporary to that of Emporiae, and ended with the island's submission to Rome in 217 B.C. The mace and hammer that Bes holds on the obverse of this coin may be an allusion to the ancient belief that the Ebususian soil possessed a property which destroyed venomous reptiles: Ebusi terra serpentes fugat (Plin. II.N.iii.v.II)
Estimate: $5,000.
Ex Bruun Rasmussen Auction 774, Copenhagen, 13 June 2007, lot 5625
APopulated by Phoenicians, Ebusus was a close ally of Carthage. Barclay Head believed that its silver coinage was likely to have been contemporary to that of Emporiae, and ended with the island's submission to Rome in 217 B.C. The mace and hammer that Bes holds on the obverse of this coin may be an allusion to the ancient belief that the Ebususian soil possessed a property which destroyed venomous reptiles: Ebusi terra serpentes fugat (Plin. II.N.iii.v.II)
Estimate: $5,000.