Tetradrachm (four drachma) coin with the head of Arethusa, the patron nymph of Syracuse. Country of Origin: Italy. Period/ Date: 405 - 400 BC. Place of Origin: Syracuse. Material: Silver.I am impressed by the degree of relief on the coin. The edges almost look like the coin has been milled, but that technology didn't happen until the modern era, so those must be some kind of stress cracks from the stamping.
Photo source: Werner Forman Archive.
It's beautiful!
ReplyDeleteThe marks on the side were not stress cracks, they were either hand reeded or had some sort of collar - this was to prevent "clipping", where people would trim off little slivers of silver and eventually steal enough to make a coin. It was a problem, so the reeded edge was invented so one could see if they were getting a full weight coin.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Justin.
DeleteThe impressive detail was made possible by two factors:
ReplyDelete1. An extremely carefully designed and executed die, and
2. Heating the metal to what is usually referred to as a "dull cherry" red. Which makes it malleable enough to take a sharp impression when the die is struck with a hammer, but still hard enough not to "squirt" or eject any bits of molten metal, which would of course have been carefully weighed beforehand.
i am sure reeded edges were used with milled coinage in a much later era
ReplyDelete