The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

CHRONOLOGY OF THE COINS OF CHIOS. 45
closely to the fully developed fifth-century type.
"While still showing unmistakable signs of the archaic
period
of art in the treatment of the features of the
Sphinx, and in its long hair, this coin will at once
be recognized as the most advanced of those so far
described.
It presents, moreover, an apparently unimportant
point of resemblance to the fifth-century coins that
constitutes a certain link with them. I refer to the
fact that the lines composing the handles of the
amphora are continued after touching the lip and bent
back in opposite directions over the mouth of the
vessel. This I take to be a rough method of repre-
senting an amphora closed with a stopper, which is
the way in which the amphora is invariably repre-
sented during the period of early fine art, and was only
relinquished when more careless work was introduced
just before the opening of the Peloponnesian war.
It is mainly owing to this small detail that I venture
assign this and the succeeding type to the period
stween circa 512 B.C., marked by the unstoppered
iphora-type No. 20, and the Ionian Revolt.
No. 22 is a unique variety of the last in which the
lised circular shield appears again. The reverse of
the type is indistinguishable from those seen on the
L- century coins, thus bringing the development
ill one step nearer to that oft-mentioned goal. 41
11 There is an archaic didrachm in Sir H. Weber's collection of
similar style to the later coins of this group, but with an amphora
stoppered as on the fifth-century pieces. It may be a little later
than No. 22, and again it may be another case where a feature,
common in later times, has appeared once and then been discarded
for a period. See remarks under No. 18, above.