Bertolami Fine Art
Auction 8 3 February 2014
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Attica, Tetradrachm, Athens, c. 511-510 BC; AR (g 16,94; mm 23; h 6); Head of Athena r., wearing crested Attic helmet, Rv. AΘE, owl standing r.; at l., olive twig. All within incuse square. SNG Copenhagen 15-20.
Rare, old cabinet tone, archaic style. Very fine / Good very fine.
The early coins of Athens, the so called Wappenmünzen, have single objects or animals within linear circle as a shield and an incuse square. It is still uncertain their chronology but scholars believe that the coins were coined approximately in 540 BC, at he end of Pisistratos' tyranny. According C. M. Kraay, the passage from Wappenmünzen to "glaukes" should be done about 511/510 BC with the fall of the Pisistratids as symbol of the new democracy. On the new coins were placed the head of Athena on obverse and a owl on reverse, typology that remained unchanged in centuries, excepted little stylistic changes, making them among the most famous and accepted coins for the ancients.
Rare, old cabinet tone, archaic style. Very fine / Good very fine.
The early coins of Athens, the so called Wappenmünzen, have single objects or animals within linear circle as a shield and an incuse square. It is still uncertain their chronology but scholars believe that the coins were coined approximately in 540 BC, at he end of Pisistratos' tyranny. According C. M. Kraay, the passage from Wappenmünzen to "glaukes" should be done about 511/510 BC with the fall of the Pisistratids as symbol of the new democracy. On the new coins were placed the head of Athena on obverse and a owl on reverse, typology that remained unchanged in centuries, excepted little stylistic changes, making them among the most famous and accepted coins for the ancients.