Hoplite Shield Designs

[Paullus Scipio]

Stefanos wrote:

Same bull head type except appearing in other pottery elements originating in the North-Eastern Attika appears on coins

....similar 'Bulls-Head' shield designs appear on at least 36 depictions of various sorts, mostly pottery, from Mythical characters such as Hera and Athene and Ares; Herakles and Achilles; Hector, Troilus, Memnon and other Trojans; Amazons and Hoplites fighting Amazons; on Corinthian plaques, and so-called 'Boeotian' shields; and from places as far apart as Southern Italy and Crete, as well as Corinth,Attica, and Boeotia.....in fact, along with the Gorgoneion, the Bulls head was one of the most widely used devices in all Greece, if these large number of surviving examples are anything to go by..........

made in the "Nomsmatokopeion ton Eupatridon" = "Mint of the Nobles" just before closed down by Peisistratos. Until Kleisthenes standarised the "official Attik coinage" the nobility had the right to mint their own.

Coinage, having originated in Asia Minor in the early 6th C BC, quickly spread to Greece in the mid 6th century. The use of the 'ox-head is most unlikely Heraldic however. It appears on early 'Attic' di-drachms called 'bous'( derived from the greek word for oxen/cattle).Plutarch gives the legendary explanation(Plut.Theseus.25) that Theseus had introduced the coins, and that the ox-head alluded to either the mythical Bull of Marathon, or the Minotaur. In fact, these early coins copied the 'ox-heads' on Euboean coins( whose name also derives from 'bous' = Oxen/cattle).....
No mention of "Heraldry"....