Video: Uncooperative Coinages - The Eagle-On-Dolphin Issues Of Sinope, Histria, And Olbia

American Numismatic Society - For over a century, Sinope, Histria, and Olbia—all traditionally held to have been founded by Miletos—issued similar silver coins, with a reverse that featured an eagle and a dolphin. Despite the shared iconography and the common cultural heritage, there is little evidence to suggest that they were produced as part of any cooperative or coordinated effort between the issuing cities. Kari Fossum (Bryn Mawr College and 2024 ANS Summer Seminar participant) will focus on economic factors to discuss these coins as a response to local circumstances. Using other archaeological evidence, she will reconstruct the system of overlapping economic networks across the Classical and early Hellenistic Black Sea.