Byzantine Follis (?)

Randy, Great score ! The image on your coin is Christ Pantocrator, & the earliest image of this type is on an icon of the 5th or 6th century from St. Catherine's Monastery. See photo below.

 

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Great coin, a very well preserved face, I think the hardest to find on these type of coins.

I believe there were older icons of Christ but were lost in the iconoclastic events. This one is indeed the oldest known that survived, but not necessarily the first.

 

Thanks to the Iconoclasts we will never know what great art treasures were destroyed. Religious lunacy has led to shocking destruction of great art works that is still going on today! Look at the toll ISIS extremists have taken on religious art ...

 

Yes unfortunately.... Also, do not forget the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by the fourth crusade. So many treasures, art, and antiquity lost including much knowledge that was preserved in the imperial library of Constantinople.