‡ Italy, Lucania, Metapontum, stater, c. 510-500 BC, ΜΕΤΑ, ear of barley, rev., same type incuse, 7.18g, die axis 12.00 (Noe/Johnston 112; Gorini 12; SNG ANS 215 var.; HN Italy 1479), toned, a few patches of horn silver, extremely fine Provenance: Hess-Leu, 7 April 1960, lot 41; European Connoisseur collection (formed before 2002).Note: An Achaean colony founded around 720 BC, Metapontum sat on the Gulf of Tarentum, to the west of that city. It ‘prospered from farming’ (Strabo) and its main crop, barley, became the city’s emblem on its coinage. One of the earliest cities in Magna Graecia to strike coins, its first issues utilized the incuse technique (exclusive to south Italian cities), whose origins are unknown, but which was clearly developed from repoussé metalwork.

This coin has been plugged at 10 o’clock on the obverse and there is some tooling of the “beards” of the barley grain; the estimate is changed to £700-1000