L’astragale comme symbole pondéral et monétaire
(2021) Play and Games in Antiquity. Definition, Transmission, Reception — Jouer dans l’Antiquité. Définition, Transmission, Réception — ISBN: [978-2-87562-288-4], 147-178, published
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- (en) Many metal astragali (made of lead, bronze, silver, or gold) were brought to light during archaeological excavations or are available in the antiquities trade. This paper focuses on an interesting corpus of bigger than life metal astragali that often have a handle or a ring, regularly show symbols, legends or countermarks, and sometimes belong to a set. All these features make it possible to identify these metal astragali sometimes as more or less standardised ingots, sometimes as genuine weights. In addition, the astragalus serves as a weight and monetary symbol, especially in Athens, where it identifies the stater (στατήρ), which is the “weigher” par excellence and the central unit of the weight system. It appears in relief on bronze or lead weights, and on silver or bronze coins, as main or secondary symbol.
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Doyen, C. (2021). L’astragale comme symbole pondéral et monétaire. In Véronique Dasen & Marco Vespa (ed.) (ed.), Play and Games in Antiquity. Definition, Transmission, Reception — Jouer dans l’Antiquité. Définition, Transmission, Réception (pp. 147-178). Presses Universitaires de Liège. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/219808