ATTICA, Athens. Circa 340-335 BC. Æ 12 mm (3,35 g). Eleusinian Festival coinage. Triptolemos, holding grain ear in right hand, seated left in winged chariot being drawn by two serpents / ELEUSI Pig standing right on mystic staff; pig's head and ivy leaf below. Kroll 38; Svoronos pl. 103, 2-3; SNG Copenhagen 414.
This piece of history was struck during the festival of Eleusis during which initiations were held for the cult of Demeter and Persephone. 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.”