v08_0823 - ETRURIA - POPULONIA Litra à l'Hippalektryon

ETRURIA - POPULONIA

(6th-5th century BC)

Populonia was located on the Tyrrhenian coast, not far from present-day Piombino. The city is mentioned by Virgil (Aeneid, 10, 172) and by Livy (28, 45, 15). Mrs. M. Cristrofani Martelli who studied the Volterra hoard attributes the archaic coins to the Hippalektryon at the Populonia mint rather than the Volterra mint. These coins, whose weight is around 1.00 g, are easily found in the coastal area, located between the Etang de Berre and the sea, and show the commercial relations that already existed at the end of the 6th century BC. C. and at the beginning of the 5th century BC between the Etruscans and the Phocaeans of Marseilles. More recently, Italo Vecchi, in the Revue Suisse de Numismatique, compiled a corpus of this coinage, (The Coinage of the Rasna. A Study in Etruscan Numismatics, SNR, 67, 69, 71 and 72, 1988 to 1992)..