Artistic Head of Pan

Sale: Triton XIII, Lot: 168. Estimate $50000.  Closing Date: Monday, 4 January 2010.  Sold For $95000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CIMMERIAN BOSPOROS, Pantikapaion. Circa 340-325 BC. AV Stater (9.11 g, 10h). Head of Pan left, wearing ivy wreath / Griffin, holding spear in its mouth, standing left, head facing, forepaw raised, on grain ear; Π-A-N around. MacDonald 54; Anokhin 109; SNG BM Black Sea 867. Superb EF, a couple insignificant marks, slight die shift on reverse. Splendid fresh and lustrous surfaces.

Pantikapaion was founded by Greek colonists from Miletos in the late seventhth century BC. Situated on the west side of the Cimmerian Bosporos, in what is now the Crimea, it achieved great prosperity through its exploitation of the abundant fisheries of the Straits and the export of wheat from the Crimea. This wealth is attested by its splendid gold coinage which commenced in the mid-4th century BC and by the magnificently furnished rock tombs of its principal citizens in the same period. Later, it was to become a regional capital of the kingdom of Mithradates VI of Pontos (120-63 BC) and later still the seat of the kings of Bosporos (first century BC - fourth century AD). The coinage of Pantikapaion seems to have commenced with silver issues in the latter part of the fifth century BC, but it is for its beautiful gold staters that the mint is chiefly noted. They depict the head of the god Pan (a pun on the name of the city) and on the reverse the griffin which Herodotos describes as being the guardian of the remote sources of gold.