I have bought 2 Phoenician coins last month, just because Phoenicia fascinates me as the founder of Carthage and Bibilical descriptions.
In its time Phoenicia was known as Canaan and is the land referenced in the Hebrew Scriptures to which Moses led the Israelites from Egypt and which Joshua then conquered (according to the biblical books of Exodus and Joshua but uncorroborated by other ancient texts and unsupported by the physical evidence thus far excavated). According to the historian Richard Miles, the people of the land recognized "a shared ethnic identity as Can'nai, inhabitants of the land of Canaan yet, despite a common linguistic, cultural, and religious inheritance, the region was very rarely politically united, with each city operating as a sovereign state ruled over by a king" (26). The city-states of Phoenicia flourished through maritime trade between c. 1500-322 BCE when the major cities were conquered by Alexander the Great.
Phoenician colonization was focused on the western Mediterranean. The probably most prominent and important Phoenician colony is Carthage. From there, Phoenicians set up colonies all along the north African coast and in modern-day Spain. While the Greek colonization was very much concerned with spreading Hellenic culture, the Phoenicians were traders, and more concerned with making money. While many Phoenician colonies disappeared and were taken over by other cultures after the decline of Phoenicia, Carthage outlasted the Phoenician empire. and rose to become an even stronger power in the western Mediterranean, which would eventually bring fear into the citizens of Rome.
Its a tiny but very detailed coin:
State, City: Phoenicia, Arados
Coin: silver Obol
- Laureate head of marine diety right
- Galley right; Phoenician 'AM' above, two waves below
Mint: Arados (BC Circa 380-350)
Wt./Size/Axis: 0.79g / 9.5mm / -
References:
SNG Copenhagen 19
Betlyon 13
BMC Phoenicia pg. 7
Posted 01/03/2016 11:40 am
