Coin-Obv-320x310.jpg
Coin-Rev-320x315.jpg
Posted 07/19/2008 3:22 pm
wwhitman, thanks for the reply.
What characteristic most readily identifies a Ptolemy coin as belonging to a particular Ptolemy ruler? In this case, to the left of the eagle is "LIË" ("L" Iota Lambda). From what I've read, my guess is that the "L" denotes the word "Year", and the "IË" (Iota Lambda) is the numeric year 10+30, or 40. (Why didn't they just use "M" (Mu) for 40?) Apparently, this year represents the year of the particular Ptolemy ruler's reign.
Per Wikipedia, Ptolemy XII ruled from 80 - 51 BC, so that's a reign of 29 years. If my read of the "IË" is correct, then, it couldn't be Ptolemy XII, and it also couldn't be Ptolemy V (204 - 181 BC (23 years)), because neither had a 40th year.
To the right of the eagle is "ÐA" (Pi? or Rho? Alpha). I don't know what this denotes. It appears on Ptolemy coins of more than one ruler. One source stated that is is the mint mark of Paphos, Cypress.
I've been looking, and haven't yet found an image of my particular coin. The coin doesn't appear to be in very good condition compared to other coins I've seen of that era on collector websites, so it probably isn't worth much, but it's interesting history.
Funny you mention that it looked cleaned. After looking at coins on collector websites, I was thinking it was real dirty and needed to be cleaned. I haven't done it yet, but was going to try that hydrogen peroxide soak discussed elsewhere on these boards.
Lancer
Edit: Some of the Greek text characters I used, did not post correctly. How can I post post Greek text characters?
What characteristic most readily identifies a Ptolemy coin as belonging to a particular Ptolemy ruler? In this case, to the left of the eagle is "LIË" ("L" Iota Lambda). From what I've read, my guess is that the "L" denotes the word "Year", and the "IË" (Iota Lambda) is the numeric year 10+30, or 40. (Why didn't they just use "M" (Mu) for 40?) Apparently, this year represents the year of the particular Ptolemy ruler's reign.
Per Wikipedia, Ptolemy XII ruled from 80 - 51 BC, so that's a reign of 29 years. If my read of the "IË" is correct, then, it couldn't be Ptolemy XII, and it also couldn't be Ptolemy V (204 - 181 BC (23 years)), because neither had a 40th year.
To the right of the eagle is "ÐA" (Pi? or Rho? Alpha). I don't know what this denotes. It appears on Ptolemy coins of more than one ruler. One source stated that is is the mint mark of Paphos, Cypress.
I've been looking, and haven't yet found an image of my particular coin. The coin doesn't appear to be in very good condition compared to other coins I've seen of that era on collector websites, so it probably isn't worth much, but it's interesting history.
Funny you mention that it looked cleaned. After looking at coins on collector websites, I was thinking it was real dirty and needed to be cleaned. I haven't done it yet, but was going to try that hydrogen peroxide soak discussed elsewhere on these boards.
Lancer
Edit: Some of the Greek text characters I used, did not post correctly. How can I post post Greek text characters?
Edited by Lancer
07/20/2008 4:31 pm
07/20/2008 4:31 pm
PtolemyXII_Obv.jpg
PtolemyXII_Rev.jpg
