Black & white glass cameo with the head of a man or woman. Roman Imperial period, c. late 100s BCE – 100s CE.

Citation: Courtesy of the British Museum, obj. 935875001. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Etruscan coin: male head with African features (an elephant is on the reverse); with Etruscan inscription. Copper alloy, minted in Etruria, Italy, c. 275 BCE-225 BCE.

Citation: Courtesy of the British Museum, obj. 105805001. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Gold ear-ring with carved garnet head: a woman of African heritage. Her hair is indicated by spirally twisted wire; her neck is decorated with filigree spirals & leaves. Classical or Hellenistic Greek, 300s -200s BCE. Found in a tomb in Kyme (Aeolis), in Asia Minor.

Citation: Courtesy of the British Museum, Obj. 359575001. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Head of a man on a silver coin. Greek, Archaic to Classical period, c. 490 BCE-470 BCE. Auriol type (from the Auriol hoard found in France in 1867). Minted in Massalia, an ancient Greek colony on the coast of what is now France: Massalia became ‘Marseille’.

Citation: Courtesy of the British Museum, Obj. 1613391660. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Silver Coin with the head of a man (possibly Delphos, one of the mythological founders of Delphi). Greek, Classical period, from before 421 BCE. Minted in the city of Delphi, the region of Phokis.

Citation: Courtesy of the British Museum, Obj. 1613391688. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Delphi has many origin stories; one names Delphos as its founder. Delphos was either 1) the son of Apollo & Celaeno, or 2) the son of Poseidon & Melantho (or Melanthia, or Melanis) — all names meaning ‘dark woman.’ Hence, on some coins Delphos is a man of African heritage.

Silver coin with the head of a man (possibly a depiction of Delphos, Delphi’s mythological founder). The head of a goat is on the reverse. Greek, minted in Delphi, in the region of Phokis, c. 421 BCE (the Classical period).

Citation: Courtesy of the British Museum, Obj. 109957001. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Delphi has many origin stories; one names Delphos as its founder. Delphos was either 1) the son of Apollo & Celaeno, or 2) the son of Poseidon & Melantho (or Melanthia, or Melanis) — all names meaning ‘dark woman.’ Hence, on some coins Delphos is a man of African heritage.