Les trois fondations d'Abdère

Herodotus and Strabon attest two main foundation phases for Abdera : the colony of Clazomenians and the colony of Teians. The excavation campaign on the site of Abdera has localised the two colonies and revealed a third phase of occupation not attested in the ancient littérature. The study of excavation coins testified that the new city started to be built by the coast during the reign of Philip II. As member of the new alliance of the macedonian king, this new Abdera, bigger and better urbanized, has never adopted the macedonian institutions, but kept on being a city of ionian origin with an important civic coinage. The epigraphical documents indicate that the relations maintained between the mother city and the colony were kept strong during their long history. The important coinage of Abdera, sharing with the coinage of Teos the same monetary type for the observe, the griffin, started to be struck a little earlier than this of her mother-city.