[Leica] IMG: Griffin

[Jayanand Govindaraj]

Thanks for the interesting discourse!

Beautiful depiction of a griffin on the coin - just the right mix of
unbridled power and royal arrogance!

Cheers
Jayanand

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 3:22 AM, John Nebel <john.nebel at csdco.com> wrote:

> Abdera tetradrachm 390-360 BC
>
> <http://photos.csd.net/abdera.html>
>
> Herodotus I, 168: "for as soon as Harpagos took their wall with a mound,
> they embarked in their ships and sailed straightway for Thrace; and there
> they founded the city of Abdera"
>
> The badge of the polis of Abdera is the griffin, a beast which combines
> the characteristics of the  strongest land animal with the strongest
> creature of the air.  It has the  body, rear paws, and tail of a lion, the
> wings and head of an eagle, and forefeet with talons rather than claws.
> Abdera was settled by refugees from Teos desiring freedom after the
> Persians had invaded and conquered their polis. Teos's coinage had a
> griffin on the obverse, and Abdera wished to show its relationship with its
> mother city by sporting a similar badge, simultaneously distinguishing the
> coinages as its griffin faces left, while Teos's faces right.
>
> Abdera's mythical founder was Herakles who named the city after his fallen
> friend Abderus, the coin reflects this founding by depicting Herakles on
> the reverse. He has his club resting on his knee and is using his cloak,
> the skin of the Nemean lion to cover the rock on which he sits.
>
> The coin's inscriptions are ΑΒΔΗ, Abdera, and ΕΠΙ ΠΦΛΑΔΟΣ, the magistrate
> upon the time, Philados.
>
> Why Teos used a griffin as it's badge is speculative, and one reference
> refers back to Abdera, which is circular.  However, from coinage, it's
> clear that Teos had a source of gold, since early on they made coins of
> electrum, a man-made mixture of gold and silver.  In myth, griffins are the
> guardians of gold, and perhaps that is the reason for the choice, a guard
> for their gold mines.  One speculation is that a very long ago miners
> looking for gold uncovered a triceratops skeleton, and hence when it was
> imaginarily fleshed out it became the guardian of gold as the griffin.
>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triceratops>
>
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