173, Lot: 163. Estimate $150. Sold for $97. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ATTICA, Athens. Circa 340-335 BC. Æ 16mm (4.19 g). Eleusis mint. Triptolemos, holding grain ear, seated left in winged chariot being drawn by two serpents / Pig standing left on mystic staff; ivy vine below. Kroll 38d var. (pig right); Svoronos, Monnaies pl. 103, 14. VF, green patina. Svoronos illustrates 35 examples of the Triptolemos / Pig Æ. Only one has the pig facing left.

From the Christopher Morcom Collection.

This statue of Triptolemos was presumably still in its temple when Pausanias (I. 38, 6) visited Eleusis in about AD 160: " The Eleusians have a temple to Triptolemos... They say that the plain called Rharion was the first to be sown and the first to grow crops... Here is shown a threshing floor and altar. My dream forbade the description of the things within the wall of the sanctuary, and the uninitiated are of course not permitted to learn that which they are prevented from seeing."