This coin, with the head of Athena on the obverse and the owl with an olive spray and crescent moon on the reverse, is an Egyptian imitation of an Athenian owl coin, not a fake. The differences are easy to spot: the large eye and crude treatment of hair at Athena’s temple and ear are good indicators of its Egyptian origin.
Imitation 'owls' were produced in Syria and Egypt when silver from the Athenian mines at Laurion became scarce after 413 BCE, towards the end of the Peloponnesian War.
