Mikhail Abramzon

The hemidrachm from Akragas of the last quarter of the 5th century BC preserved in the Museum of Kerch is a very rare and important fi nd both for the Bosporos and the whole of the North Pontic Area. Coins from Neapolis, Metapontos, Croton, Tarentum, Megara and Syracuse have also been discovered in this region. These fi nd shed some light on the poorly explored question of commercial contacts between the North Pontic Area and Graecia Magna. These contacts, almost indiscernible, perhaps indirect, are also refl ected in the scarce material of South Italian import of the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. The uniqueness of the hemidrachm is also due to the fact that coins of this richest and most infl uent centre of South Sicily are extremely rare on the vast territory beyond Graecia Magna. Besides, all known Akragas coins are dated to the time before 406 BC, when its unprecedented economic and commercial heyday was interrupted by the Carthagenian invasion. The hemidrachm from Akragas, as well as other coins and artifacts from South Italian and Sicilian centres found on the Cimmerian Bosporos, show that import from Graecia Magna must have begun in the 1st half of the 4th century BC.