Owner Comments:
IONIA, Phokaia. Circa 625/0-522 BC. EL Hekte – Sixth Stater (10mm, 2.57 g). Head of African left, wearing necklace; to right, seal downward / Rough incuse square. Bodenstedt Em. 24. Scratches, scrape on obverse. VF.
This is a rare coin of the ancient city of Phokaia in Ionia (modern Turkey) struck in electrum 560-545 BC. It depicts the head of a sub-Saharan African man facing left with a seal, (the seal is off the coin in this example, unfortunately), the civic badge of Phokaia behind the head.
To the Greeks, Africans were called Aethiopians and they appear regularly in Greek art. The Greeks were well acquainted with sub-Saharan Africans since they appear often in Greek literature as mythical characters and warriors.
Indeed, Africans south of the desert were known in the Greek world as early as the Minoan period. They were often mercenary soldiers – not slaves. There are records of them fighting for the Minoans as well as in the army of Memnon at Troy. Even the Persians hired black mercenary soldiers who appeared in the army of Xerxes in the battle of Marathon (see Frazer, J. G., 1913: Pausanias’ Description of Greece, II. Macmillan, London, p 434; and Graindor, P., 1908: Les Vases au Nègre. Musée Belge, p 29).
This same kind of head appears in incuse on the reverse of a silver half-stater which has only appeared at auction a couple of times, and is of an unknown mint. See NAC52, 177, https://www.flickr.com/photos/antiquitiesproject/4802203901