Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 418. Estimate $1500.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $2000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BOIOTIA, Thebes. Circa 450-440 BC. AR Stater (11.95 g). Boiotian shield / Nymph (Thebe?) seated left on low rock, her right hand outstretched, her left resting on rock; (archaic Q)-E upward on left, B-A across upper field; all within square incuse. Myron Hoard pl. A, 32 (same dies); BMC p. 72, 41, pl. XII, 9 = Traité III 232, pl. CC, 1 (same dies); SNG Delepierre 1352 (same dies). VF, toned, irregular flan, reverse struck softly in part. Extremely rare. ($1500)

Ex Auctiones 23 (17 June 1993), lot 312; Vinchon 27 February 1961, lot 145.

Another interpretation of the reverse type is "Demeter seated on the Unsmiling Stone". When Persephone was abducted by Pluto and was held captive in the Underworld, Demeter looked for her everywhere with no success. Finally, she arrived in Eleusis where, exhausted, she sat on a rock (which is said to exist even today) and mourned. Her grief permeated the stone which, since then, has been known as the Agelastos Petra (Unsmiling Stone).