Attica Athens. Tetradrachm circa 455-449 BC. Head of Athena right, wearing an Attic helmet adorned with three olive leaves and a sprig with palmette, and a round earring / Owl standing right, head facing, with triple-pronged tail feathers; behind, olive sprig and crescent; all within incuse square. 17,23g. Cf. Starr Group V, series A, 161; Cf. Svoronos pl. 9, 7-12. One of the nicest Athenian tetradrachms in existence. Provenance: Tkalec & Rauch (16 November 1987), 89. UBS 47 (14 September 1999), 52. UBS 49 (11 September 2000), 116. NGSA 5 (2 December 2008), 88 (illustrated on front cover). Thyssen-Kaplan Collection, NGSA 9 (14 December 2015), 48. Discussing the city of Athens (IACP 361) would be superfluous: it is the best known of all Greek cities and surely is the true cradle of Western civilization. This coin shows the city's eponymous goddess, Athena, bearing a slight "archaic smile" of great charm. Her familiar owl is depicted on the reverse: one of her epithets was Glaukopis, bright-eyed, and the name for a little owl, was Glaux. When this coin was struck, a little prior to the mid-5th century, Athens was surely at the height of her power. The Athenian Empire was in full swing and Athens was becoming increasingly wealthy: the Parthenon would be built starting in 447. This magnificent coin, very sharply struck from new dies, testifies to that wealth and pride.