Klazomenai (BC 500-494) EL Stater

ca 500-494 BC. EL Stater (14.01g, 19mm). Forepart of winged boar right; rose above / Quadripartite incuse square. Good VF, toned. Extremely rare issue, this variety with rose unpublished. Milesian standard.

This coin appears to belong to a diverse series of electrum staters struck on the Milesian standard that Kraay (ACGC p. 30), and others, have tentatively attributed to the period of the Ionian Revolt. Although none have ethnics, the obverses of many of the coins are of types common to various cities involved in the revolt. Kraay notes the significant problem with the theory is that none of these coins feature a type attributable to Miletos, the city that led the revolt, but he proposed that it was possible the entire series was struck there as a centralized mint. Thus the types could either represent the cities that contributed resources to the revolt or successive Milesian officials who oversaw the coinage production. If the obverse type does represent the city, this issue would most likely belong to Klazomenai, all of whose contemporary coinage featured a winged-boar forepart.