This interesting coin showed up in my mail yesterday. Metapontion AR Stater ca. 510-480 BC : 21mm, 8.1gms Obv: Ear of Corn, grasshopper to left and META (retrograde) to right Rev: Incuse Ear of Corn I found a couple more somewhat similar examples, and they all refer to the insect shown as a grasshopper. It somehow makes more sense to me if this was actually a locust, and not a grasshopper. Perhaps a swarm of locusts devastated crops in the region at that time and this coin was in response to the event. Who knows. What's interesting is that other than the locust/grasshopper (and bee of course) there are not a lot of insect species depicted on Greek coins.
Rare indeed. I would have preferred a bee to provide honey at the end of this year. Jokes and cheers. Happy New Year.
Wow, very interesting! What do you suppose those dotted lines are in the background of the obverse?...representing perhaps corn silk, or wheat???
I have had this pic of insect coins for a while. We I finally get other Canadian collections done I will want to try and get these ancient coins...
The grasshopper type is my very favorite of these Metapontion staters. There are some which have the outline of a dolphin on the reverse. I read a CNG description which conjectures that the grasshopper (or locust) represents a disastrous plague, and the dolphin represents Apollo who would disperse the locusts and save the people from starvation. Who knows. Nice story though. And a nice coin!
Metapontion Ar Nomos 540-510 B.C. Obv. Ear of grain Rv. The same incuse Noe 19 8.20 grms 28mm Photo by W. Hansen
My guess is barley. Those in the US have trouble here because the word corn in the US means a specific species 'Maize' while n the UK it means a more generic grain. Most of our traditional references came from the UK and use the word corn in their way.
