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Message:: [QUOTE="Orielensis, post: 7936142, member: 96898"]Here is another Greek silver coin from the lot that I bought recently (more <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/a-really-old-coin-my-new-1-6-stater-of-king-croesus.387147/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/a-really-old-coin-my-new-1-6-stater-of-king-croesus.387147/">here</a>):[ATTACH=full]1372783[/ATTACH] Bruttium, Kroton, AR nomos, ca. 480–430 BC. Obv: retrograde ϘPO; tripod with legs terminating in lion’s feet; to left, heron standing r. Rev: incuse tripod with central pellet. 18mm, 7.92g. Ref: HN Italy 2102; SNG ANS 261-2. Ex Teutoburger 138, lot 856 (part of); ex Albrecht&Hoffmann, auction XXIV, lot 67. Kroton (today Crotone), located at the southern shore of the Gulf of Taranto in Italy, was founded by Achaean colonists at the end of the 8th century BC. According to legend, the city’s founding father Myscellus was advised to establish a settlement in Italy by the Delphic oracle. This founding myth might explain the tripod emblem of the city shown on my coin. The Pythia of the Delphic oracle took her seat on a tripod that was sacred to Apollo:[ATTACH=full]1372793[/ATTACH] John Collier: Priestess of Delphi (1891). This 19th century painting shows the Pythia seated on the tripod associated with the Delphic oracle. Furthermore, the tripod might also have been associated with the number three that in Pythagorean philosophy was considered sacred: three points are needed to define a triangle, which the Pythagoreans revered as a symbol of Apollo. The philosopher Pythagoras (c. 570–510 BC) himself had been, after all, a resident of Kroton. According to Diogenes Laertios, Pythagoras wielded considerable political power in the city. A direct connection between the incuse coinage of Magna Graecia and Pythagoras has thus been proposed frequently in older numismatic scholarship (especially by the British art historian Charles Theodore Seltman), but this position is very much disputed in more recent publications.[ATTACH=full]1372781[/ATTACH]The location of Kroton/Crotone at the Gulf of Taranto The earliest coins from Kroton stem from the 6th century BC and have considerably broader but thinner flans. My coin is from a later period when the flans had become thicker and less fragile. It certainly feels very chunky and (almost) archaic in hand. It’s typical for early coins from Magna Graecia to show an incuse version of the obverse design on the reverse. Contemporary coins from, for example, Metapontum and Sybaris show the same feature. The exact reasoning behind this is not known. Personally, I like this type of design because it reminds me of my main collecting field, medieval bracteates:[ATTACH=full]1372784[/ATTACH]Lindau, royal mint, AR bracteate penny, ca. 1295–1335. Obv: linden branch with three leaves and twelve blossoms in fields. Rev: negative design (bracteate). 20mm, 0.37g. Ref: Berger 2528–2531. Finally and although my coin came with a respectable 1970s German auction provenance, I was a bit suspicious because of the rather unregular ethnic on the obverse. Yet, a bit of sleuthing produced a couple of die matches, including the two coins below, which were sold by CNG and Leu. Looking at the other coins from the same obverse die, I suspect that this die was re-engraved after having seen considerable wear, leaving visible traces of the original ethnic “ϘPO” below the new letters: [ATTACH=full]1372797[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]1372798[/ATTACH] Please feel free to show your own tripods, incuse reverses, and coins from Magna Graecia![/QUOTE]

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