Hecta (Coin) Depicting the Goddess Demeter (400-350 BCE): Artwork and History

Hecta (Coin) Depicting the Goddess Demeter (400-350 BCE) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Greek, minted in Lesbos, probably Mytilene.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

The front (obverse) of this coin depicts the head of goddess Demeter facing right, veiled and crowned with grain; her hair is rolled at the brow and she wears a circular earring. The back (reverse) of the coin depicts a tripod lebes, with 3-ring handles from 2 of which hang knotted taenia. The island of Lesbos was famous for its writers, including the poets Alcaeus and Sappho, and for its cult of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture. Visitors could bring their questions to Demeter’s temple, where an oracle answered them by reading cobwebs. In an unusual show of cooperation, the two rival cities of Mytilene and Phocaea agreed to share a mint, which produced this beautiful coin showing the island’s patron goddess crowned with a wreath of grain.

Object facts

• Title: Hecta (Coin) Depicting the Goddess Demeter
• Date: 400-350 BCE
• Artist attribution: Greek, minted in Lesbos, probably Mytilene
• Place of origin: Greece
• Medium: Electrum
• Dimensions: Diam.: 1.1 cm (7/16 in.)
• Type: Coin
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1922.4926

Collection credit

Gift of Martin A. Ryerson

View the original

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.