DescriptionGreek Silver Tetradrachm of Tenedos (Mysia, Islands off Troas), a Wonderful Janiform Head of Zeus and Hera.jpg
Mysia
Islands off Troas, Tenedos. Circa 100-70 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 16.27 g 12). Janiform head composed of a laureate and bearded head of Zeus to left and a diademed head of Hera to right. Rev. ΤΕΝΕΔΙΩΝ Double axe; below left, monogram of PA and bunch of grapes; below right, caps of the Dioscouri; all within laurel wreath. Callataÿ, Tenedos 80 (same dies = Pozzi 2289). Very rare. A splendid coin of excellent style, struck in high relief. Minor traces of overstriking, otherwise, extremely fine. From the Z collection, Switzerland.
The early coinage of Tenedos bore janiform heads similar to the one here, but on those the male head was bare and without a laurel wreath. Those heads portrayed two characters from a local foundation legend: Tenes and, probably, his young step-mother and lover, Philonome. However, even in ancient times the combination of the janiform, male/female head and the double axe on the reverse gave rise to tales of the punishment for adultery (!), and by the end of the 5th century the head on the coins of Tenedos was transformed into one of Zeus and Hera. After a long break when the only silver coins struck were posthumous Lysimachus tetradrachms, Tenedos resumed minting silver during the 1st century BC with a series of tetradrachms and drachms, like the present example. These coins are uniformly very rare.
This image, which was originally posted to Flickr, was uploaded to Commons using Flickr upload bot on 28 March 2011, 19:45 by Dorieo. On that date, it was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the license indicated.
to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0CC BY 2.0 Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 truetrue
Information
Captions
Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents