The Double Heads of Istrus: the Oldest Eclipse on a Coin

Details The Double Heads of Istrus: the Oldest Eclipse on a Coin The Double Heads of Istrus: the Oldest Eclipse on a Coin

Aug 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005dps....37.0803s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #37, #08.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 37, p.629

Other

Scientific paper

The ancient city of Istrus was situated in the delta of the River Danube on the western edge of the Black Sea near what is now Constanta in Romania. From the late fifth and through most of the fourth century B.C. it minted silver coins whose remarkable obverse shows two young male heads, inverted with respect to each other. The heads are essentially identical, and always anti-parallel. The image of the double, anti-parallel heads appears to be unique, not only in numismatics but also in general. We searched the Warburg collection of iconography without finding any similar example. We propose that these are images of the sun-god Apollo and that their inversion was inspired by a nearly total eclipse of the Sun visible at Istrus in 434 B.C.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

The Double Heads of Istrus: the Oldest Eclipse on a Coin does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with The Double Heads of Istrus: the Oldest Eclipse on a Coin, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The Double Heads of Istrus: the Oldest Eclipse on a Coin will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-950831