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!
Drachm - Moschion
| Issuer | Chios (Ionia) |
|---|---|
| Year | 100 BC - 86 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 | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Round (irregular) |
| 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 | Sphinx seated left in a crouching posture, its leonine body and feathered wings rendered in fine archaic style. The sphinx's face is depicted frontally with a human visage, its hair elaborately dressed. A bunch of grapes is shown in the left field before the sphinx, a characteristic emblem of Chios. The design is set within a dotted border and occupies the full flan. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Greek |
| 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 | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Chios maintained its independent coinage through much of the Hellenistic period by positioning itself carefully between competing powers. This issue falls within the final decades before Sulla's sack of Athens in 86 BC, when Roman military pressure was reshaping the Aegean economy and many island mints were struck hard by the disruptions of the First Mithridatic War. The magistrate name Moschion appears on this emission as the issuing authority responsible for the series.
Mavrogordato's 1918 classification remains the definitive reference for Chian coinage of this period, a study that has never been superseded.