I thought that members of the Ancient Coins forum would be interested to know how we removed a question mark and can now slightly amend Dr Fischer-Bossert’s Chronologie (Chronology of the Didrachm Minting at Tarentum). About twenty years ago I acquired the following coin (CNG 2001 57 lot 19) where it was attributed as F-B 18 (V8 / R14, coin ‘c’). Calabria, Tarentum, 500 – 490 BC, nomos (22mm, 8.04g) Obverse: Phalanthos nude on dolphin right, hands outstretched, TARAS retrograde below Reverse: Hippocamp right, shell below Looking this coin up in F-B’s Chronologie (snip below) we can see that Fischer-Bossert thought that this coin might be the same as the one catalogued as coin 2 from the S Giovanni Ionico hoard. The S Giovanni Ionico hoard was documented by Dr Kraay in SNR 1987 where coin 2 is listed with its weight on p 27 (snip below) Although a photo of coin 2 was not published, photos from the hoard are stored in the Heberden Coin Room at the Ashmolean Museum. Thanks to the assistance of the relevant curator, the photo was pulled from their files (copy below) and the attribution confirmed. Observant readers will note that this coin is wrongly labelled ‘2a’ instead of ‘2.’ The Museum advises that the weight and photo are nevertheless correct, and there is another coin marked ‘2a’ which has the correct weight for that coin. Therefore F-B’s coin 18c is the same as 18d which is as above, and from the S Giovanni Ionico hoard. I’d like to thank Dr Fischer-Bossert for confirming these conclusions.
