Featured Ancient Coins of Melita

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by TIF, Jul 16, 2019.

  1. TIF

    TIF Always learning.

    Trying something new... a video presentation. The coins are below if you don't want to spend 5 minutes listening to me talk :D. Perhaps tomorrow I'll post a transcript of the video.




    MelitaNephtys-RT.jpg
    ISLANDS BETWEEN SICILY AND AFRICA, Melita.
    c. 218-175 BCE. Æ 29 mm, 10.82 gm
    Obv: Veiled and diademed female head right
    Rev: Mummy of Osiris standing facing, head left, between winged figures of Isis and Nephtys, each holding a palm frond; Punic ‘NN above
    Ref: SNG Copenhagen (Vol. 8) 458-9

    MelitaIsisNephtysOsiris2-RT.jpg
    ISLANDS BETWEEN SICILY AND AFRICA, Melita.
    c. 218-175 BCE. Æ 29 mm, 10.84 gm
    Obv: Veiled and diademed female head right
    Rev: Mummy of Osiris standing facing, head left, between winged figures of Isis and Nephtys, each holding a palm frond; Punic ‘NN above
    Ref: SNG Copenhagen (Vol. 8) 458-9

    MelitaWingedMale-RT.jpg
    ISLANDS BETWEEN SICILY AND AFRICA, Melita.
    c. 160 BCE. Æ 27 mm, 11.88 gm
    Obv: Head of Isis (?) left; Tanit symbol with Kerykeion to left; MEΛΙΤΑΙΩΝ around right
    Rev: Winged male deity (Osiris?) wearing the double crown of Egypt, kneeling left and holding a crook (or sceptre) and a flail
    Ref: CNP 949; Coleiro in NC 1971, 3; SNRIS 2.15 (this coin)
    ex David Freedman collection; Triton V, New York 2002, no. 292

    MelitaIsisOsiris-RT.jpg
    ISLANDS BETWEEN SICILY AND AFRICA, Melita.
    c. 125 BCE. Æ 26 mm, 11.17 gm
    Obv: Head of Isis (?) left; grain ear before her; MEΛΙΤΑΙΩΝ around right
    Rev: Winged male deity (Osiris?) wearing the double crown of Egypt, kneeling left and holding a crook (or sceptre) and a flail
    Ref: SNG Copenhagen 465

    ...

    I'd ask everyone to post their coins of Melita (ancient Malta) but none have ever been shown before on CoinTalk :p :D.

    Feedback on the video is welcome. It was a tedious and time-consuming but fun endeavor, learning how to use the editing program as I went. I did quite a bit of reading and research for this presentation but somehow I just couldn't make it fit into a brief but cohesive writeup so while this video doesn't add to the body of knowledge, at least it is something different :).
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2019
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  3. Sallent

    Sallent Live long and prosper

    What a lovely voice. So soothing. Great editing skills too. Can't wait to see more videos from you in the future. :)
     
    Theodosius and TIF like this.
  4. Plumbata

    Plumbata Well-Known Member

    Great arcane coins and an informative, almost ASMResque video, thanks for sharing and taking the time to create and share this with us!

    I have no ancient coins from Malta but for some mysterious reason am now infected with a desire to obtain a few, I wonder how that happened? :p
     
  5. randygeki

    randygeki Coin Collector

    Great video!
     
    TIF and ominus1 like this.
  6. ominus1

    ominus1 Well-Known Member

    kool coins & vid TIF...:)
     
    TIF likes this.
  7. Pavlos

    Pavlos You pick out the big men. I'll make them brave!

    Great video and coin! and lovely voice to listen to. I hope we can expect more in the future :)
     
    TIF likes this.
  8. JBGood

    JBGood Collector of coinage Supporter

    Very informative and well done!
     
    TIF likes this.
  9. Nicholas Molinari

    Nicholas Molinari Well-Known Member

    Nice job and interesting coins. I’m really intrigued by the four-winged deity and his identity.

    What are you using for video editing software? I recently found an app, Videoleap, that is very easy to use.
     
    TIF likes this.
  10. Chris B

    Chris B Supporter! Supporter

    Great...now I want some coins from Melita. Thanks for sharing @TIF I collect Maltese coins from the 1700s which are way more common.
     
    TIF likes this.
  11. Ryro

    Ryro Trying to remove supporter status

    WoWiE! You know I'm a sucker for ancient Egypt, but holy Osiris, those new additions are simply to be mummified for!
    And what a great job on the video! I've flirted with the idea of posting to YouTube but feared it would've been wasted effort. Great job on mastering a new medium!
    Here's one of my favorite Egyptian memes to go with the themes:
    2281D81A-C91C-45DE-ABB7-F8A7B3DEA86E.png
     
  12. Alegandron

    Alegandron "ΤΩΙ ΚΡΑΤΙΣΤΩΙ..." ΜΕΓΑΣ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ, June 323 BCE

    Fantastic video presentation, @TIF ! Further, I am very intrigued by the Melita coins. Great job capturing these rare finds, and what a cool mystery behind them! I am truly envious, and now you have me really interested in these coins and their history. ( :) ugh, chasing some of my Etruria coins were a bit... expensive... look what you are DOING to me...)

    I have read some basic historical background of Malta, and they have always interested me. Their prehistory from their settling in approx 6000 BCE included temples and megalithic structures around 4000 BCE. Pretty amazing that a civilization arose with sophistication to have megalithic buildings and rutted limestone roads. Then they died out in 2500 BCE.

    Why would a relatively small land area island (300 sq km) have some of the largest and oldest megalithic structures in Europe? Cool and intriguing history.

    upload_2019-7-16_8-1-50.png
    upload_2019-7-16_8-6-4.png
    upload_2019-7-16_8-7-2.png
    upload_2019-7-16_8-7-49.png
    upload_2019-7-16_8-0-3.png

    Here is a 50 minute lecture...



    LOL, and sadly, the Melita name is reminescent of coffee makers in today's homes... cool beans...
    upload_2019-7-16_8-10-26.png
     
    chrsmat71, Sulla80, Curtisimo and 8 others like this.
  13. Alegandron

    Alegandron "ΤΩΙ ΚΡΑΤΙΣΤΩΙ..." ΜΕΓΑΣ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ, June 323 BCE

    Here are my coins of Malta, but minted MUCH MUCH later than yours...

    [​IMG]
    Malta Order of Knights of St John 1786 AE 10 Grani - Turino mint

    [​IMG]
    Malta Order of Knights of St John 1780 AE 1 Grani - Turino mint

    [​IMG]
    Malta Order of Knights of St John 1780 AE 5 Grani - Malta mint
     
  14. Roman Collector

    Roman Collector Well-Known Member

    Absolutely fascinating, @TIF ! I hope more scholarly research is done on this area of coinage.
     
    TIF likes this.
  15. Justin Lee

    Justin Lee I learn by doing

    Superb video, @TIF!!! As a regular consumer of YouTube historical videos from all sorts, your video is right up there !

    And those coins!! As Doug stated on another current thread:
    I had never seen or heard of ancient Malita or its coins before this.

    Exactly!

    Thank you for sharing!
     
    Theodosius, Alegandron and TIF like this.
  16. TIF

    TIF Always learning.

    :D

    The worst-condition Isis/winged Osiris is the first I acquired and naturally one of the best examples out there appeared almost immediately afterwards. I bought it too :oops:.

    I couldn't post them until securing an example with the Isis-Osiris-Nephtys reverse because that coin would be part of the writeup and I didn't want to create competition for the infrequently seen issue. The average appearance over the last couple of decades had averaged one per year but in clusters. I wrote to a couple of dealers asking them to help me hunt and they basically said, yeah, good luck. Amazingly, not one but three came up for sale over the next few months! I forgot to add another coin to the ones shown in the video-- for sale on Vcoins. Another example came up for auction right around the same time and I managed to snag it (and then another one for a great price shortly thereafter!). Hmm, it looks like someone has recently bit on the Vcoins example-- it is now "reserved".

    At the risk of sounding superstitious, things seem to come in threes so maybe that's it for this type for the next year or two. Then again, with people like me paying embarrassing prices for these coins, maybe more will come out of the woodwork.

    One thing that struck me was the lack of repeat appearances of the Isis-Osiris-Nephtys coin in archives. When people acquire them they seem to hang on to them! I haven't finished searching archives for all examples of the Isis/winged deity example to see if the situation is similar.

    Me too, and there is much more written than I touched on in the video although without any agreement.

    His headdress looks more like a Pschent (double crown of Egypt) than an Atef crown (the usual headdress worn by Osiris) and he is holding a crook (sceptre?) and flail-- symbols of royalty. Is this a meaningful difference? I don't know.

    WingedOsiris-CrownTypes-cropped.jpg

    The images of this particular coin are edited from the seller. I shot the coin a while back and didn't edit them. When I finally took a look they weren't good. Now the coins are in storage and I can't reshoot. I'm in Texas at the moment and flew my entire collection with me... now they are in a bank's safe deposit box. I miss being able to fondle them at will! :(

    I'm anticipating moving back to the States by the end of the year and didn't want to deal with the coins during the main move, plus I didn't want the anxiety of protecting them during another hurricane season.

    I'm using VideoPad and don't remember how I chose it. It got the job done but wasn't easy and the audio mixing was utilitarian at best. I had no control over audio tracks other than start/end time and options to fade in or out. I'd really like to be able to have full control over faders so sound could be raised and lowered, not just on/off. Because of the limitations of VideoPad (or maybe just my ability to use it), I only have music in the intro and outro of this video.

    I don't have a good microphone with me nor my analog to digital convertor so I had to record the narration on my cell phone as voice memos and then dump them onto the video editing pad. The sound quality could be better but at least the phone didn't ring and my mom's dogs didn't bark :D.

    As always, a clever turn of phrase :joyful::joyful:.

    Yeah, those megaliths are interesting!!
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2019
  17. Aidan_()

    Aidan_() Numismatic Contributor

    Fantastic video and coins @TIF very well done!
     
    TIF likes this.
  18. zumbly

    zumbly Ha'ina 'ia mai ana ka puana

    Excellent video! I've no coins of Melita (yet), but have some wonderful memories of a day trip to the island a few years ago when we were on a Mediterranean cruise. I especially remember sailing into harbour and really enjoying the view of all the sand-coloured walls and buildings.

    00Malta Harbour.jpg

    00Malta2.jpg

    Most of the old architecture we saw, like that in the evocative "silent city" of Mdina, was Medieval rather than ancient, but very well preserved and beautiful.

    Looking forward to your next coin video! :)
     
  19. TIF

    TIF Always learning.

    :D

    I came across that term not long ago when browsing some hilarious posts on the Botnik website. I went there to read a faux Harry Potter chapter written by bots and it was uproarious, like a modern-day Mad Libs. Further browsing led me to this bizarre and mesmerizing video, which led to googling ASMR...

    I could try whispering my next coin video narration? :D
     
    Theodosius likes this.
  20. Orfew

    Orfew Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus

    Wow @TIF that was a great video. I did not know anything about these coins before. Thanks for all the work you did on this and I hope we will see many more videos from you soon.
     
    TIF likes this.
  21. lrbguy

    lrbguy Well-Known Member

    Excellent video TIF, not only for the images but also the attention to scholarly detail, word pronunciation, referencing, and by no means least - good audio. I hope you will continue to create these.
     
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