Nomos 23

ILLYRIA. Uncertain city. 4th-2nd century BC. Weight of 1 Mna (Bronze, 65x67x18 mm, 389.00 g, 12 h), an ingot-shaped bronze weight with an impressive high relief head of a boar. Head of a boar to left, with protruding ear. Rev. Blank. Tekin, Balance Weights, -. Rare and impressive. Beautifully made and with a fine, green patina. Light cleaning marks. Good very fine.

From an old European collection acquired in the Illyrian district during a trip taken in 1990s.

Exactly what weight this is meant to be is unclear: it is definitely light for an Attic mna (or mina). The shape is unusual, but it does reflect the oxhide shape of early ingots, and this may be somehow traditional. In Tekin's exhaustive survey there is nothing like it: the only piece that is of low weight like this one (in fact lower), comes from Alexandria Troas and, as Tekin points out, is clearly a modern forgery. The present piece is definitely genuine. The quality of the workmanship and the casting is very high: the definite find spot in Illyria, modern Albania, makes it unlikely that it comes from Lyttos in Crete, which used a boar's head as a city badge; or one of the cities of the Aegean or Asia Minor.