Collection History: Uncertain
This coin is an extraordinarily lifelike depiction of a goat. In 1976 Colin Kraay wrote that this and the other goat denominations were produced by the Macedonian capital of Aigai, before Macedonian coinage became regal under King Alexander I. Until more recently, this was the prevailing opinion. In an article published in 2000, Catherine Lorber deduces that the “goats” are instead a Thraco-Macedonian tribal issue produced by the Krestones or Mygdones. Her reasoning is that (1) Macedonian coinage overlapped the goat coinage in time and as showed by photographs, the chief Macedonian imagery was the king riding or standing next to a horse, not a goat. (2) Goats, when they were depicted on Macedonian coins, did not have the extraordinarily lifelike style of the “goats” (3) The goat as a religious symbol, a mediator between the human and the divine as was the king, was representative of the Krestones rather than the Macedonians. (4) The Mygdones, a neighbor tribe of the Krestones had a developed urban life and were capable of designing the “forward looking” control system of pellets, monograms, and rosettes used on various “goat” issues. Hence, her reasoning that this in not a Macedonian coin, but one produced by a nearby tribe. John Nebel 2013.