Celtic Celts Danube Silver Tetradrachm Greek Style Coin like THASOS NGC i59874

Description

Item:
i59874
Authentic Ancient Coin of:
Celtic Tribe of the Danube
Making coins in style of the Greek city of Thasos on Island in the Thracian Sea
Silver Tetradrachm 32mm (16.57 grams) Struck by the Danubian Celts circa 148-50 B.C.
Reference: S-215; BMC-Celtic-221; Lanz-967
Certification: NGC Ancients VF  4375823-123
Head of young Dionysos right, wreathed with ivy and with band across forehead.
HPAKΛΕΟΥΣ ΣΩΤΗΡΟΣ ΘΑΣΙΩΝ - Hercules, naked, standing left, holding club, lion's skin over left arm; monogram in field to left.
* Numismatic Note: The Celtic peoples would issue their own versions of the coins of their neighbors, such as the Greeks which have their own unique style to behold. Quality ancient Celtic coin.
The Celts of the Danube imitated ancient Greek coins of the time period, this one of the city of Thasos in Thrace. The reason they did this as they traded with the Greeks and their coins were popular and recognized for trade, so they struck their own. You can see the Cetlic style showing on this coin.
A rich and fertile island off the southern coast of Thrace, Thasos possessed prolific gold mines and had a controlling interest in many of the silver mines on the mainland.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
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Area Where the Danube Area Celts would have been located
The
Danube
is a river in
Central Europe
, the
European Union
's longest and the
continent
's second longest (after the
Volga
).
Classified as an
international waterway
, it originates in the town of
Donaueschingen
--which is in the
Black Forest
of Germany--at the
confluence
of the rivers
Brigach
and
Breg
. The Danube then flows southeast for 2,872 km (1,785 mi), passing through four
Central European
capitals before emptying into the
Black Sea
via the
Danube Delta
in
Romania
and
Ukraine
.
Once a long-standing frontier of the
Roman Empire
, the river passes through or touches the borders of ten countries:
Romania
(29.0% of basin area),
Hungary
(11.6%),
Serbia
(10.2%),
Austria
(10.0%),
Germany
(7.0%),
Bulgaria
(5.9%),
Slovakia
(5.9%),
Croatia
(4.4%),
Ukraine
(3.8%), and
Moldova
(1.6%).
[1]
Its
drainage basin
extends into nine more.
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The Celts
(pronounced
/ˈkɛlts/
or /ˈsɛlts/, see
Celtic
pronunciation of
) were a diverse group of
tribal societies
in
Iron Age
and
Roman-era
Europe
who spoke
Celtic languages
.
Diachronic distribution of Celtic peoples:
core Hallstatt territory, by the 6th century BC
maximal Celtic expansion, by 275 BC
Lusitanian area of Iberia where Celtic presence is uncertain
the "six Celtic nations" which retained significant numbers of Celtic speakers into the Early Modern period
areas where Celtic languages remain widely spoken today
The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather
Proto-Celtic
, was the
central European
Hallstatt culture
(c. 800-450 BC), named for the rich grave finds in
Hallstatt
, Austria. By the later
La Tène
period (c. 450 BC up to the Roman conquest), this Celtic culture had expanded over a wide range of regions, whether by
diffusion
or
migration
: to the
British Isles
(
Insular Celts
), the
Iberian Peninsula
(
Celtiberians
,
Celtici
and
Gallaeci
), much of
Central Europe
, (
Gauls
) and following the
Gallic invasion of the Balkans
in 279 BC as far east as central
Anatolia
(
Galatians
).
The earliest directly attested examples of a Celtic language are the
Lepontic
inscriptions, beginning from the 6th century BC.
Continental Celtic languages
are attested only in inscriptions and place-names.
Insular Celtic
is attested from about the 4th century AD in
ogham inscriptions
, although it is clearly much earlier. Literary tradition begins with
Old Irish
from about the 8th century. Coherent texts of
Early Irish literature
, such as the
Táin Bó Cúailnge
(
The Cattle Raid of Cooley
), survive in 12th-century recensions. According to the theory of
John T. Koch
and others, the
Tartessian language
may have been the earliest directly attested Celtic language with the Tartessian written script used in the inscriptions based on a version of a Phoenician script in use around 825 BC.
By mid 1st millennium AD, following the expansion of the
Roman Empire
and the
Great Migrations
(
Migration Period
) of
Germanic peoples
, Celtic culture and
Insular Celtic
had become restricted to
Ireland
and to the western and northern parts of
Great Britain
(
Wales
,
Scotland
,
Cornwall
and the
Isle of Man
) and northern
France
(
Brittany
). The
Continental Celtic languages
ceased to be widely used by the 6th century.
Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the
Gaels
(
Irish
,
Scottish
and
Manx
), the
Brythonic
Celts (
Welsh
,
Cornish
, and
Bretons
) of the medieval and modern periods. A modern "
Celtic identity
" was constructed in the context of the Romanticist
Celtic Revival
in Great Britain (Wales, Scotland, Cornwall and the Isle of Man) and Ireland. In France a similar revival of
Breton
is taking place in
Brittany
.
Thasos
or
Thassos
(
Greek
:
Θάσος
) is a
Greek
island in the northern
Aegean Sea
, close to the coast of
Thrace
and the plain of the river
Nestos
but geographically part of
Macedonia
. And it is where Clive Cussler novel "The Mediterranean Caper" takes place.
//
History
Prehistory
Lying close to the coast of Eastern Macedonia, Thasos was inhabited from the Palaeolithic period onwards, but the earliest settlement to have been explored in detail is that at Limenaria where Middle and Late Neolithic remains have been found which relate closely to those of the Drama Plain. In contrast, the remains of the Early Bronze Age on the island align it with the culture which developed in the Cylcades and Sporades to the south in the Aegean. At Skala Sotiros for example, a small settlement was encircled by a strongly built defensive wall. Even earlier activity is demonstrated by the presence of large pieces of 'megalithic' anthropomorphic stelai built into these walls which, so far, have no parallels in the Aegean area.
There is then a gap in the archaeological record until the end of the Bronze Age c 1100 BC, when the first burials took place at the large cemetery of Kastri in the interior of the island. Here built tombs covered with small mound of earth were typical until the end of the Iron Age. In the earliest tombs were a small number of locally imitated
Mycenaean
pottery vessels, but the majority of the hand-made pottery with incised decoration reflects connections eastwards with Thrace and beyond.
Antiquity
The island was colonized at an early date by
Phoenicians
, attracted probably by its gold mines; they founded a temple to the god
Melqart
, whom the
Greeks
identified as
"Tyrian Heracles"
, and whose cult was merged with Heracles in the course of the island's Hellenization. The temple still existed in the time of
Herodotus
. An
eponymous
Thasos, son of Phoenix (or of Agenor, as Pausanias reported) was said to have been the leader of the Phoenicians, and to have given his name to the
island
.
In either 720 or 708 BC, Thasos received a
Greek
colony from
Paros
. It was in a war which the
Parian
colonists waged with the Saians, a Thracian tribe, that the poet
Archilochus
threw away his shield. The Greeks extended their power to the mainland, where they owned gold mines which were even more valuable than those on the island. From these sources the Thasians drew great wealth, their annual revenues amounting to 200 or even 300 talents. Herodotus, who visited Thasos, says that the best mines on the island were those which had been opened by the Phoenicians on the east side of the island facing
Samothrace
.
Thasos was important during the
Ionian Revolt
against Persia. After the capture of
Miletus
(494 BC)
Histiaeus
, the
Ionian
leader, laid siege. The attack failed, but, warned by the danger, the Thasians employed their revenues to build war ships and strengthen their fortifications. This excited the suspicions of the Persians, and
Darius
compelled them to surrender their ships and pull down their walls. After the defeat of
Xerxes
the Thasians joined the Delian confederacy; but afterwards, on account of a difference about the mines and marts on the mainland, they revolted.
The Athenians defeated them by sea, and, after a siege that lasted more than two years, took the capital, Thasos, probably in 463 BC, and compelled the Thasians to destroy their walls, surrender their ships, pay an indemnity and an annual contribution (in 449 BC this was 21 talents, from 445 BC about 30 talents), and resign their possessions on the mainland. In 411 BC, at the time of the oligarchical revolution at Athens, Thasos again revolted from Athens and received a Lacedaemonian governor; but in 407 BC the partisans of Lacedaemon were expelled, and the Athenians under
Thrasybulus
were admitted.
Roman Era
After the
Battle of Aegospotami
(405 BC), Thasos again fell into the hands of the
Lacedaemonians
under
Lysander
who formed a decarchy there; but the Athenians must have recovered it, for it formed one of the subjects of dispute between them and
Philip II of Macedonia
. In the embroilment between
Philip III of Macedonia
and the Romans, Thasos submitted to Philip, but received its freedom at the hands of the Romans after the
battle of Cynoscephalae
(197 BC), and it was still a "free" state in the time of
Pliny
.
It is related, that Byzantine Greek Saint
Joannicius the Great
in one of his miracles freed the island of Thasos from a multitude of snakes (Venerable Joannicius lived through 8-9 centuries).
Ottoman Era
Thasos was part of the
Eastern Roman Empire
, later known as
Byzantine Empire
. It was captured by the
Turks
in 1462. Under the Turks the island was known as
Ottoman Turkish
: طاشوز
Taşöz
. A brief revolt against Ottoman rule in 1821, led by Hajiyorgis Metaxas, failed. The island was given by the Sultan
Mahmud II
to
Muhammad Ali of Egypt
of as a personal fiefdom in the late 1820s, as a reward for Egyptian intervention in the
War of Greek Independence
(which failed to prevent the creation of the modern Greek state). Egyptian rule was relatively benign (by some accounts Muhammad Ali had either been born or spent his infancy on Thasos) and the island became prosperous, until 1908, when the New Turk regime asserted
Turkish
control. It had the status of a
sanjak
in the
vilayet
of Salonici until the
Balkan Wars
. On October 20, 1912 during the
First Balkan War
, a Greek naval detachment claimed Thasos as part of
Greece
, which it has remained since.
World War II
During Axis occupation (1941-1944) Thasos, along with the rest of
Eastern Macedonia and Thrace
, was under Bulgarian control. The Bulgarians planned to annex the territory under their control and closed down schools as a first step towards forced
Bulgarization
. Under Bulgarian rule the island was called
Bulgarian
:
Тасос
. Mountainous terrain facilitated small-scale resistance activity. The
Greek Civil War
affected the island in the form of skirmishes and
Communist
guerilla attacks until 1950, almost a year after the main hostilities were over on the
mainland
.
Modern Era
Thasos in 1950's
Church in Thasos
Thasos
, the capital (now informally known as Limenas, or "the port"), stood on the north side of the island, and had two harbors. Archilochus described Thasos as "an ass's backbone crowned with wild wood," and the description still suits the mountainous island with its forests of fir and pine. Besides its gold mines, the wine, nuts and marble of Thasos were well known in antiquity. Thasian wine (a light bodied wine with a characteristic apple scent) was, in particular, quite famous; to the point where all Thasian coins carried the head of the wine god
Dionysos
on one side and bunches of grape of the other.
Today, Thasos is a part of the
Kavala prefecture
and is the southernmost and the easternmost points in the prefecture. Under local government reform in the late 1990s, the entire island became a single municipality. Thasos is served ferry routes to and from
Kavala
and Keramoti. The latter is a port at the eastern portion of the prefecture, close to
Kavala International Airport
, and has the shortest possible crossing to the island.
Geography
Thasos from space, April 1993
Thasos has generally round shape, without deep bays and significant peninsulas. The highest peak, Ypsario or Ipsario, is 1,205 m (3428 ft) high and lies in the eastern half of the island, which is steeper and mostly covered in pine forest. The western half has gentler slopes. While generally mountainous, the terrain is not particularly rugged, as it rises gradually from the coast towards the island center.
Most villages were placed inland, as the population was chiefly engaged in agriculture and stockbreeding. Those villages had their harbors at nearest points on the shore, often connected with stairways ("Skalas") and the population gradually migrated there, as tourism began to emerge as an important source of income. Thus, there are several pairs of villages such as Marion–Skala Maries, where the former is inland and the latter on the coast.
Geology
Geological and Metallogenic map of Thasos Island.
Thasos island is located in the northern Aegean sea approximately 7 km from the mainland and 20 km south-east of
Kavala
. The Island is formed mainly by
gneisses
,
schists
and
marbles
of the
Rhodope
Massif. Marble sequences, corresponding to the
Falacron
Marbles intercalated by schists and gneisses, are up to 500m thick and are separated from the underlying gneisses by a transition zone about 300 m thick termed the T-zone consisting of alternances of dolomitic and calcitic marbles intercalated by schists and gneisses.
The rocks have undergone several periods of regional metamorphism, to at least upper
amphibolite
facies, and there was a subsequent phase of retrograde metamorphism. At least three periods of regional deformation have been identified, the most important being large scale
isoclinal
folding with axes aligned north-west. The T-zone is deformed and is interpreted by some authors as a regional thrust of pre-major folding age. There are two major high angle fault systems aligned north-west and north-east respectively. A large low-angle thrust cuts the gneiss, schist and marble sequence at the south-west corner of the island, probably indicating an overthrusting of the Serbomacedonian Massif onto the Rodope Massif.
The Late Miocene oil-producing Nestos-Prinos basin is located between Thassos island and the mainland. The floor of the basin is around 1,500 m deep off the Thassos coast(South Kavala ridge; Proedrou, 1988) and up to 4.000-5.000 m in the axial sector between Thassos and the mainland. The basin is filled with Late Miocene-Pliocene sediments, including ubiquitously repeated evaporite layers of rock salt and anhydrite-dolomite which alternate with sandstones, conglomerates, black shales, and
uraniferous
coal measures (Proedrou, 1979, 1988; Taupitz, 1985). Stratigraphically equivalent rocks on the mainland are clastic sediments with coal beds, marine to brackish fluvial units and travertines.
Mining history
Mining activities for base and precious metals started in the 7th century B.C. with the Phoenicians, followed in the 4th century by the Greeks and then the Romans. The mining was both open - pit and underground, and concentrated on the numerous
karst
hosted calamine deposits for lead and silver although there was also minor exploitation of gold and copper. Worth mentioning is the discovery of a paleolithic addit located at Tzines iron mine, whose age has being estimated at approximately 15.000 years old, (Kovkouli et al. 1988) for the exploitation of
limonitic
ochre.
Economy
The main agricultural production on the island are
honey
and
olive oil
as well as
wine
,
sheep
,
goat
herding and fishing. Other industries includes lumber and tourism. Mining industry includes lead, zinc and marble, especially in the Panagia area where one of the mountains near the Thracian Sea has a large marble quarry. Now abandoned marble quarry in the south (in the area of Aliki) has been mined during the ancient times. By far the most important economic activity is tourism.
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