Images and links updated 3.6.2026. I apologize for having no idea 13 years on where that top image is from.

I came across this image of a bulla in my reading today and was immediately struck by the visual similarities with the Doson coin I posted about earlier.  How common is this image?  Not that common really.  Besides Doson, Magnetes of Thessaly has a similar type with Artemis:

And it is also a standard type of Histiaea in Euboia:

 

But that seems to be about it.  The publishers of the seal focus on the coins of Sidon, such as this:

This isn’t really that close in design or style even if they show a figure on a ship. There might be a lost Sidonian type with a figure seated on just prow, but I suspect the inspiration for the design came from trade connections with the North.

updated:

RPC Sidonian coins with a prow.

exemplary images

N.B. RPC tends to call ships galleys for Sidon.