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CARTHAGE. Circa 350-320 BC. AV Stater (19mm, 9.41 g, 9h). Carthage mint. Head of Tanit left, wearing wreath of grain ears, triple-pendant earring, and necklace with nine pendants / Horse standing right; three pellets to right of forelegs. Jenkins & Lewis Group IIIh, 92 (same obv. die); CNP 1.5h; MAA 4. Fully lustrous, minor die wear. EF.
By the third century BC, the Punic goddess Tanit and the horse had become the standard types of Carthaginian coinage and remained so for the balance of the city’s existence. Tanit was the primary deity of Carthage. A celestial divinity with some fertility aspects, she was the North African equivalent of Astarte. She is always depicted on the coinage wearing a wreath of grain, which may have been borrowed from Demeter and Persephone as the Carthaginians assimilated the Sicilian culture into their own during the various Punic excursions to the island. The use of the horse on the reverse is usually considered part of the foundation myth of Carthage. According to Virgil's Aeneid, the Phoenician colonists who founded Carthage were told by Juno (or Tanit) to establish the new colony at the place where they discovered a horse's head in the ground. Another theory is that the obverse head is actually Demeter or Persephone, whose worship was introduced to Carthage in 396 BC to make amends for the destruction of the goddesses' temples outside Syracuse by the Carthaginian army.
The final winners of all Triton XXVI lots will be determined at the live public sale that will be held on 10-11 January 2023.
Triton XXVI – Session One – Lots 1-334 will be held Tuesday morning, 10 January 2023 beginning at 9:00 AM ET.
Winning bids are subject to a 22.5% buyer's fee for bids placed on this website and 25% for all others.
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