My first tetartemorion

[kirispupis]

For some time, I've been interested in picking up a tiny coin. I do own a half gerah (.27g), but had been interested in something smaller.

So, I was very pleased when I won this coin from Latmos that not only is incredibly small, but it's also from a city I didn't have. It's so small that I had to bring out my "super macro" lens in order to photograph it, since the 1.4x magnification my normal macro takes wasn't sufficient.

Caria, Latmos
Circa 400-350 BCE
AR Tetartemorion 6 mm, 0.17 g, 3 h
Bare female head to right.
Rev. Monogram of ΛΑΤΜ.
HN Online 962. Konuk, Latmos, 5 (O4/R5)

 

For details on this coinage, see Konuk's The Coinage of Latmos. So tiny are these coins that they weren't known until the 1980's, when a hoard was presumably found that entered the market. Many of the specimens were well worn, but given the fact that no other city starts with "Latm" (the 'm' is formed of the lamda and the alpha) and that recent finds were very close to ancient Latmos, the attribution is no longer disputed.

Konuk wonders whether the shape of the monogram was designed to resemble nearby Mount Latmos, which per mythology was the home of Endymion. Well...some mythology - his resting place was disputed between Elis and Latmos/Herakleia (which superseded Latmos).

There are numerous legends of Endymion, but the most popular seems to be where Selene - goddess of the moon - falls in love with Endymion for his beauty. She therefore begs Zeus to put him to sleep and he obliges. In other tales Endymion does something to upset Zeus, and that gets him eternal sleep. Anyways, everyone agrees that he was asleep and Selene then came to his bed and "helped herself." She did this over a period of time and had 50 daughters with him.

Some of the coinage of Latmos, which Konuk believes occurred over a relatively short period of time due to the small number of dies, has a male on the obverse. Konuk theorizes this could be the personification of Mount Latmos. My coin, however, has a young female. It certainly seems plausible to me that, since Latmos was famous in antiquity for its ancient temple to Endymion, that this could be Selene.

Konuk argues against this based on his belief that the male on the other coins is unlikely to be Endymion. He is typically depicted as a young shepherd, though admits that occurred in much later Roman art. Since the male could not be Endymion, he finds Selene unlikely. Personally, I find the simpler solution easier. Given that even Greek depictions of mythological characters wasn't uniform, it seems likely that much later Roman art also deviated. On most of my 4th century Greek coins from cities that were famous for a particular temple, that character more often than not appears on their coins.

Regardless, I'm very proud of my first tetartemorion, though at some point I won't be able to resist adding a hemi-tetartemorion.

Please show some of your tiny coins!

[Phil Anthos]

Very nice coin. It always amazes the detail they could achieve on such a tiny canvas.

~ Peter 

[Brennos]

My tiniest coin : a silver onkia from Syracuse (1/12th of a litra).

0.06g

 

 

 

[ambr0zie]

1 hour ago, kirispupis said:

though at some point I won't be able to resist adding a hemi-tetartemorion.

This one is ridiculously small. The picture quality is bad because it's very difficult to photograph. I must say something else too: when I went to the window sill to photograph it (the place where I like to take my pics) the coin fell from my hand. On the carpet. And it probably rolled a little. Took me 5 minutes to find it. 

5 mm, 0,08 g.
Ionia, Miletos. Possible Caria, Mylasa. AR hemitetartemorion. Circa 525-475 BC.
Head of a roaring lion l. / Quail standing l. within incuse square.
Cf. Rosen 407/8; Klein 430; SNG Tubingen 3001.

 

[Herodotus]

I wonder how many inner cheeks(and not the ones inside of one's mouth) these coins have seen.  Ooh, did I just go there?😝

As alluded to above... I would advise not handling these minis on a rug or carpeted surface.

ASIA MINOR. Uncertain. AR Tetartemorion. (Circa 5th century BC). (5mm .13g).

O: Head of bull right.

R: Stellate pattern/Star of four rays, with pellet at center; all within incuse square.

[Deinomenid]

Amazing coins, though I prefer the term "lip money" to that of the second Herodotus! 🙂

@Brennos I had no idea that there was Syracuse silver so small - I thought from  Boehringer etc that they split litra or hemiliitra into bronze onkia of appropriate value and therefore  much  higher weight. I couldn't find any in the recent German book on Syracuse small silver, or on the usual places likes Wildwinds or coinarchives. There are a few  probably mislabeled as onkia as they have a lot  higher weight, more litra-weight. Please could you share a little more about it? Date etc -it would be much appreciated!

[Brennos]

4 hours ago, Deinomenid said:

Amazing coins, though I prefer the term "lip money" to that of the second Herodotus! 🙂

@Brennos I had no idea that there was Syracuse silver so small - I thought from  Boehringer etc that they split litra or hemiliitra into bronze onkia of appropriate value and therefore  much  higher weight. I couldn't find any in the recent German book on Syracuse small silver, or on the usual places likes Wildwinds or coinarchives. There are a few  probably mislabeled as onkia as they have a lot  higher weight, more litra-weight. Please could you share a little more about it? Date etc -it would be much appreciated!

A Siver onkia of Syracuse (from the Moretti collection) has first been published by C. Boehringer in his 2006 article "Zwei Fragen zur syrakusanischen Numismatik" 

O/ femal head right
R/ pellet  between the letters Σ and Υ 

0.085g 

 

To my knowledge, mine is the second known exemplar . Very few other onkias are attested for Katane, Naxos and (maybe ?) Himera

The silver litra was introduced in 450 BC at Syracuse along with hemilitra and hexas (1 obol + 1 hexas = 1 litra). Boehringer in his article indicates that the onkia was introduced later. 

I think the onkia maybe contemporary to this Hexas that is dated arround 435 BC by Bérend following Manganaro.

 

 

I'd be interested to know the chronology of Syracuse small silver fractions proposed by the new book you're talking about.

The chronology of the introduction of the bronze coinage in Syracuse is still open to debate...

 

 

 

 

 

[Deinomenid]

That's fantastic! In a  way a relief  to me too as I thought I was missing something  obvious, but only 2  known examples!

That book is Syrakusische Drachmen und Kleinsilbermunzen in der Periode der Signierenden Kunstler by Harmutt Kreutzer. My German's decent but I may have missed it. The smallest he discusses are "dionkien" of which he has  only noted 2,  one sold  in the 2007 NY sale at .12g and one at M&M Basel in 1989 at 0.13g.

Again, I may be doing him a disservice.

 

[Deinomenid]

23 minutes ago, Brennos said:

I'd be interested to know the chronology of Syracuse small silver fractions proposed by the new book you're talking about.

Happy to share anything - by small which ones? For the drachms and  hemidrachms he's  got some pretty precise dates, though as per the title of the book, he's really focused  on small  silver from the  time of the signing artists. For the litra and  hemilitra types my poor and possibly dangerous translation was as follows, with the summary in bold-

 

 

How to date the woman's head in profile with ampyx and sphendone on the various nominals? 

While easy to answer  the question of how to classify the types of drachma in which the Leukaspis picture with facing images of the type "Frauenkopf en profile" is combined with Ampyx and Sphendone - namely also in the period after the victory over the Athenians - on the other hand, it is problematic to find a plausible time determination for the smaller nominals that show the same Arethusa image. The backs of the Litra and Trionkien (octopus) and the Hemilitras and Dionkien (wheel) offer no evidence of dating. Only stylistic considerations could give us information when looking at the woman's head, whereby the aspect of typological congruence between the head images of the Tetradrachms and the smaller nominals plays an essential role.

We encounter the image of women with Ampyx and Sphendone in the same design on a long series of tetradrachms, starting with Tudeer (Rev) 20, 23 and 24, which has an extensive sequence of "women's pictures" in which the hair is worn open and picked up by a necklace "string" on the neck (Tudeer (Rev) 1-6, 12-16, 17-19, 21, 22 and 25) or winds upwards in waves (Tudeer (Rev) 7-11). Up to and including Tudeer No. 45, all these engravings have this  in common, that neither on the face  nor on the wagon  coupled with them are there any pictorial motifs that could be thematically linked to the year 413 BC. It will therefore be assumed that these coins were available before the Athenian invasion and had been circulated a few years earlier, because after the beginning of the war, it was not time to have new coin engravings produced with artistically high-quality execution. In such a situation, Syracuse had to think of other things than the new issue of a small, until then neglected silver nominal. The existing silver was used for the minting of high-quality coins to reward mercenaries and pay for war material, with coin  molds reused, even if they were already severely damaged. This is particularly clear with Tudeer (Rev) 23 and Tudeer (Av) 12. Here you can easily track the progressive wear of the coin stamps on the numerous preserved copies.  After the interruption by Tudeer (Rev) 28 and 29 ("Kora/Persephone") and the other "victory coinages", the series of women's heads with Ampyx and Sphendone with Tudeer (Rev) 41 were resumed and continued until the advent of the "flutter/water hair heads". 

If you compare the pictures of women on the small coins to those of the same tetradrachms, no system can be derived from the respective image design of the individual types with regard to the chronological sequence. Even the comparison of the individual hemidrachms with each other does not provide useful information. The picture scheme is basically identical in terms of the arrangement of the two framing the head dolphins, the design of the hairstyle, the ear and neck jewellery….the  deviations are minimal, and a significant stylistic development of the image of women cannot be recognised. The same applies to the litras, hemilitras, trionkias and dionkia. ....

 

 

[shanxi]

I can add a Tetartemorion from Kyzikos and Tritartemorion from Athens

Asia Minor uncertain
Kyzikos, Mysia ??
AR Tetartemorion, 510-480 B.C.
Obv.: forepart of boar? right
Rev.: incuse punch
Ag, 0.14g, 5mm
Ref.: -

Attica. Athens
Tritartemorion (454-404 BC)
Obv: Helmeted head of Athena right.
Rev: A Θ Ε within three crescents
Ag, 6mm, 0.48g
Ref.: Kroll 21b, SNG Copenhagen 57