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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Marsyas Mike, post: 3215832, member: 85693&quot;]Over the past few months I have been trying to range further afield in my collecting, buying small, cheap Roman Provincials and Greek bronzes, not knowing what in the heck I&#039;m getting, then trying to figure them out.&nbsp; This has been a very pleasant pastime, and I have learned a lot (and have a long way to go). </p><p><br /></p><p>I thought I&#039;d share a recent purchase, a tiny AE from Neandria (also spelt Neandreia) in the Troas.&nbsp; The coin has a mottled green patina that makes it hard to see and photograph, but I was charmed by its simplicity - Apollo, a grain kernel, a bunch of grapes, and NEAN. &quot;The size of an aspirin,&quot; I thought, when I opened the package, but actually it is smaller than an aspirin (take that, Panama Pill!). </p><p><br /></p><p>Knowing nothing of Neandria, I started surfing the web, to find that Neandria, unlike most of the Greek, Balkan, and Asian Minor sites I look up, never got ravaged.&nbsp; People lived there peacefully for a thousand years or so, then they were told to move off by Antigonus I Monophthalmus - before that, it must&#039;ve been a pretty nice place to live, actually</p><p><br /></p><p>From Wikipedia (mentioning coins!):</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;In ca. 310 BCE Antigonus I Monophthalmus founded the city of Antigonia Troas (after 301 BCE renamed Alexandria Troas) as a synoecism of the surrounding cities of the Troad, including Neandreia.[18] The earliest coinage of the newly synoecized city adopted the coin types of Neandreia, which displayed a grazing horse, and this remained Alexandria Troas&#039; emblem on its coinage for the rest of antiquity.[19] From this point on, Neandreia had no independent political existence, hence in the 1st century CE Pliny the Elder listed it among the settlements in the Troad which no longer existed in his day.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Before that, there was some Persian/Athenian swapping going on, but no massacres that anyone is aware of, no archaeological &quot;burnt layers&quot; no mass graves.&nbsp; And afterwards no Roman or Gothic devastation, no Byzantine or Muslim occupation.&nbsp; The place pretty much was abandoned c. 301 B.C. (although some historians think there was a military garrison kept there up to early Roman times, but they left scant evidence of occupations).&nbsp; The walls, though ruined, are unmodified Hellenistic (or earlier) construction.&nbsp; Also, I thought it interesting, that Neadria&#039;s coin types lived on in the issues from Alexandria Troas. </p><p><br /></p><p>Another wonderful source is the Aeternitas Numismatics site; a tour of Neanrdria&#039;s site is described, the rather desolate, but beautiful ruins, spread out over a wide area.&nbsp; Great photos too.&nbsp; The sojourner in the Aeternitas blog has this to say about the coins:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;The rest of the fourth century BC was a time of a certain prosperity for the city of Neandria. This is indicated by the important constructive activity archaeologically detected and the fact that the city issued bronze and silver coins in sufficiently high amounts so that today they are not considered rare. These emissions mostly show the god Apollo on the obverse, considered for this reason the tutelary deity of the city, and elements of agricultural-livestock type (the economic base of the city) on the reverse such as barley grains, oil amphoras or wine, clusters of grapes, rams and horses.&quot;</p><p><a href="https://www.aeternitas-numismatics.com/single-post/Neandria-Turkey" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.aeternitas-numismatics.com/single-post/Neandria-Turkey" rel="nofollow">https://www.aeternitas-numismatics.com/single-post/Neandria-Turkey</a></p><p><br /></p><p>My humble coin is below (with aspirin comparison).&nbsp; Any other Neandria coins out there, or for that matter, Alexander Troas with Neandria types?&nbsp; Or just any obscure places of antiquity?</p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b>[ATTACH=full]836160[/ATTACH] </b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b>Troas, Neandria Æ 10</b></p><p><b>(c. 350-310 B.C.) </b></p><p>Laureate head of Apollo right / NEA[N], ethnic vertically upward to left of grain kernel; bunch of grapes on stem to right.</p><p>SNG Copenhagen 448; SNG Tübingen 2652.</p><p>(1.54 grams / 10 mm)</p><p><br /></p><p>Flunking the aspirin comparison test:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]836161[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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