‡ Crete, Polyrhenion, stater, c. 330 BC, laureate head of Zeus right, rev., ΠΟΛΥ-ΡΗΝ-ΙΟΝ arranged around the facing head of a bull with garlands hanging from his horns; above, magistrate’s name ΧΑΡΙΣΘΕΝ, 1.40g, die axis 12.00 (Svoronos pl. 25, 23; Le Rider pl. 33, 15 var; Traité III, pl. 262, 3), light toning, about extremely fine, very rare Provenance: Niggeler collection, Bank Leu and Münzen und Medaillen, 1965, lot 336; and The Numismatic Auction Ltd 3, New York, 1 December 1985, lot 105; European Connoisseur collection (formed before 2002). Note: The importance of bulls in classical Cretan myth, as mentioned above, should be seen as part of a longer term fascination with the animal in the spiritual imagination of the southern Aegean. Images of bulls abound in Neolithic sites in southwestern Anatolia and throughout the Bronze Age Minoan world, including in the palace at Knossos. This fascination survived the so-called Late Bronze Age Collapse, when the Minoan civilisation of Crete disintegrated alongside many of its neighbours and the Greek world was plunged into what some scholars have termed the Greek Dark Ages (circa 1100-750 BC). It is in this poorly-understood period that the city of Polyrrhenion was formed: Strabo (10.4.13) tells us that immigrants from Achaea and Laconia settled there with locals who had previously lived in scattered villages. From its earliest issues in the 4th century B.C. Polyrrhenian coinage typically sported the city’s symbol of the bucranium, a garlanded bull’s head, as we see here.

Estimate: GBP 5000-7000