Coin Greece Olbia - Proto-currency, Dophin - Vth Century BC

This bronze proto-coin was issued by the city of Olbia Pontica in the 5th century BC. The monetary unit takes the form of a dolphin, a characteristic shape of these primitive issues unique to this Greek city of the Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea).

Olbia, a Milesian colony founded on the banks of the Southern Bug river (in present-day Ukraine), was in the 5th century BC a prosperous trading city maintaining close relations with the Scythian peoples of the hinterland. These dolphin-shaped proto-coins represent one of the oldest and most singular monetary manifestations in the Greek world. They circulated prior to the adoption of struck coins of more conventional form and are generally associated with the cult of Apollo Delphinios, the tutelary deity of Olbia. The city enjoyed intense commercial activity at the time, particularly in the trade of grain, fish and slaves with other regions of the Greek world. Relations with the Scythians, at once a source of tensions and fruitful exchanges, profoundly shaped the economic and political life of the colony. Herodotus, who visited the region in the 5th century BC, describes these peoples and their interactions with the Greek colonies of the Pontus Euxinus, offering a first-hand account of this particular context.