Unique And Unpublished! PHOKIS. Delphi. Circa 355 BC. Tritartemorion (Silver, 9.5 mm, 0.65 g, 6 h). Head of a youthful male with African features. Rev. ΔΕΛ at the center of a circle of three dolphins swimming to left. Apparently unpublished and unknown. Cf. BCD Peloponnesos 1773 (with an African head and ΤΤΤ, attributed to an uncertain Arkadian mint). BCD Phokis -. BMC -. Cf. SNG Copenhagen Aetolia-Euboea 148 (with an African head and ΤΤΤ vaguely similar to the BCD Peloponnesos piece). Svoronos, Delphi -, but cf. 30 (as the BCD piece), and 31 (a contemporary diobol with the same reverse legend). Unique and of the highest historical significance. Flat striking and porous surfaces, otherwise, good fine. The obverse of this coin features the head of a youthful African male facing left. This person is commonly thought to be Delphos, the eponymous founder of Delphi, son of Poseidon and the nymph Melaine (whose name translates to the Black One or the Dark One). This is the only Delphic example showing Delphos facing left: all the previously published coins from Delphi with Delphos have him facing right. According to Svoronos, depictions of Delphos were primarily minted right after the peace of Nikias in 421 BC, but were produced until the closure of the mint during the Third Sacred War (356-346 BC). On the reverse we see a design that acts as a denominational mark (3). The types published by Svoronos et al. feature three T's arranged in a pattern similar to the way the dolphins appear on the reverse here; thus, it seems reasonable to identify it as a denominational mark. In BCD Peloponnesos the triple-T coin was attributed to an Arkadian mint; this was based on style. This seemed reasonable then, but with the present type's obverse and reverse legend it is highly probable that the similarity to this type, it is much more likely that the types with three T's were minted in Delphi as well. Obviously, the present piece has to be attributed to the mint at Delphi. The legend itself is of chronological and linguistic interest: the earlier legend used at Delphi was in Doric (with alpha - A) but what we have here is in Attic dialect (an epsilon - E). According to Svoronos in his 1902 work on Delphi, the switch was made in 357/6, just before the outbreak of the Third Sacred War against the Phokians. The use of Attic can, thus, allow us to place the coin into that short period right prior to the Phocian sack of the Sanctuary of Delphi in 355 BC and the closure of the autonomous mint. This type is, thus, a final monument of Delphic coinage, of great historic importance; the last coin of Delphi prior to the revival of mintage under Augustus.