
Cleveland Museum of Art
Tetradrachm: Owl, standing, r., crescent moon and olive branch above (reverse)
- Date
- 449–440 BCE
- Medium
- silver
- Culture
- Greek, minted at Athens (Attica)
- Department
- Greek and Roman Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 120479
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
Incorporating the first three letters of the city name—ΑΘΕ—with then-iconic images of the patron goddess Athena and her owl, the Athenian tetradrachm was among the most widely traded and most recognizable coins of the ancient world. The olive leaves on Athena’s helmet and the small crescent moon behind the owl date three of these coins after the Persian Wars. The images of Athena on the obverse and her owl here unmistakably identify this coin as Athenian.
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Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Gift of Dr. Jacob Hirsch
- Provenance
- ?-1941: Dr. Jacob Hirsch, New York, NY, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 1941-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Part of a LinkedCulture topic
Ancient Greek Silver TetradrachmsThese objects are all tetradrachm coins, a standard ancient Greek silver denomination, depicting various deities and symbols from Greek city-states and territories across the Mediterranean.
333 objects from 3 institutions
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