Laos
Nomos circa 510-500, AR 7.91 g. [ΛAFΣ] Man-headed bull (the river god Laos) r., head reverted. Exergual line of raised dots between two lines. Rev. [MON] Same type l. incuse. Incuse wreath border. SNG Copenhagen 1145 (these dies). SNG ANS 132. AMB 123. Weber 727 (these dies). Sternberg series I, 1. Historia Numorum 2270 (these dies). Extremely rare. Struck on unusually good metal and with a light old cabinet tone. Minor traces of overstriking on obverse field, otherwise good very fine From the Collection of a Mentor. The obverse and reverse legend taken together compose the ethnic adjective Lavinos, "of Laos", river-port colony of Sybaris, to which the remaing inhabitants of the mother-city would have fled after the destruction of Sybaris by its neighbours in 510 BC. The thick, late incuse fabric of this very short coinage seems to support this view, as does the type; the Sybaritic bull converted into a conventional river-god type to represent the river-god Laos.