Lot 4591

Description

Black Sea Region, (6-5th century B.C.), AE arrowhead, (4.22 g), 43x10 mm, as Proto-Money from the Apollonia Pontica area, leaf-shaped, with rib marks on one side, (cf.SNG Stancomb 26). Very fine and rare with rib pattern.

The Milesian colonies of Olbia, Borysthenes, Istros, Odessos, and Apollonia, founded on the western Black sea coast in the 7th century BC, were once the central points of exchange and trade between the Greeks and local Scythian and Thracian populations. This exchange prompted the introduction of pre-monetary items: the ubiquitous 'dolphins' and the scarcer 'arrowheads' and 'wheel-coins', all cast in copper. These pieces remained in circulation in the west Pontic area for about two centuries, until being finally replaced by struck coinage.