This coin is a true nonconformist. It is clearly an imitation of the Athenian tetradrachms produced in the 5th century BC, second half. While this coin has the hallmarks of local manufacture in terms of style and flan shape (quite oblong) its most striking feature is the reverse. The owl, rather than facing the customary direction of leaning right, is leaning left. The ethnic, the olive leaves and the crescent moon are also shifted. My guess is that an inexperienced die maker, at least the one involved making the reverse die, made a fundamental mistake. It's quite clear that the owl and other design elements were engraved into the die as they appear when viewing a coin. An experienced die cutter would know that the engraving must be done with the owl and other elements in reverse or opposite orientation. This coin is very crude and has a test cut on the reverse as well as some graffiti (merchant mark?). There's also a shallow mark on the obverse. This coin weighs 15.9 grams 25 mm at the widest point, 3 h. Quite an odd bird.
What an interesting left leaning owl. First time seeing this. I also think it is made by an inexperienced engraver. Even the "AO" (of AOE) is reversed.
The imitations of the Athenian tetradrachm were issued in a wide geographical region, spanning Asian Minor, south to Arabia, north to Bactria and south to India. I think this coin could be from one of the Arabian mints, but, really, so much is still not understood about these imitations, this is only a guess. This area of numismatics is a work in progress.
I always wondered how someone could get a job as a celator if they were objectively terrible at their job. I think of the horrendous Barbarous imitations of imperial roman coins which are terrible. Did these crafsmen simply not care about their work?? This is an honest mistake, but still. There's no way you could get a job as an engraver today if you didn't understand the mirror-image concept.
True. It appears that there was a shortage of skilled or even competent engravers back then, at least in some locales. It also appears that sloppy or localized styles of imitations were accepted, so long as there was a general appearance of consistency of design, so local issuers probably didn't feel a strong need to produce coinage true to the original design, be Athenian, Alexandrian, Roman or Byzantine.
