The three irregular lines are supposedly the traditional spit coinage of Sparta. The originals are in New York City for the next three weeks, as part of an exhibition, Athens-Sparta, at the Onassis Cultural Center, 645 Fifth Avenue.
Admission is free. There is a lot of amazing pottery and scuplture, nearly all from Athens or Sparta.
I was also excited about some metal toy soldiers and mythological monsters. The exhibit card said the figures had some votive purpose. Maybe they are found in temples, but I still think they are toy soldiers. A lot of Christian churches keep a room full of toys, and not for any religious purpose other than to get parents to come to Bible study class.
Anyway, the coins. A very nice group of Athenian coins, including one of the ANS's dekadrachms. Most (all?) denominations of the Athena-owl coinage are on display, including the tiny fractions.
There is also a group of coinage spits of Sparta. I have no idea how archeologists tell these spits from cooking spits, it wasn't explained in the exhibit. (There is a very nice $30 catalog of the show but I didn't get it.)
A Syracusan dekadrachm is also present. I don't know why. It is on display in the middle of the Athenian coins. It kind of looks out-of-place. I never thought I'd turn down seeing a dekadrachm but the Athenian coinage would have been more impressive without the Sicilian invader.
1 comment:
If those are the little lead soldiers and animals, such as griffins, that I remember seeing by the caseful in the Sparta Museum, they definitely are votives. They wouldn't stand up. Also we do have lots of toys from childresn's graves all over Greece.
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