Speakers
Description
The Wappenmϋnzen were the first coin types at Athens instigated by the Peisistratid tyrants in the third quarter of the sixth century BCE with changing types long thought to be 'heraldic' rather than state-sanctioned, minted in small denominations mainly for domestic use. Late in the sixth century, a standard 'owl' type was adopted, minted primarily in large denomination tetradrachms. The change of type and denomination was associated with access to domestic silver mined in Lavrion, Attica, prior to the introduction of democracy. Literary evidence implies the Peisistratids derived the silver for the Wappenmϋnzen from Northern Greece, and from Attica for the owls. Here we examine the silver ore sources of the Wappenmϋnzen and the owls using high-precision lead isotope data on a large set of new and legacy data of ores and coins, and detailed numismatic information on the coins and their types combined with new statistical approaches and EDXRF.
