[Leica] IMG: Griffin

[Mark Rabiner]

Breathtaking!!


On 6/15/15 5:52 PM, "John D. 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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-- 
Mark William Rabiner
Photographer
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/