The ancient seaport city of Caesarea Maritima was built by King Herod the Great in circa 22-9 BC. It later became the provincial capital of Roman Judea & was named after the first Roman emperor Caesar Augustus. King Herod had a magnificent temple built for Caesar Augustus & a luxurious summer palace built for himself by the sea. This pagan city became the most important harbor on the Eastern Mediterranean coast, rivaling Cleopatra's harbor at Alexandria, Egypt. The reconstructed theater that could seat 3,000 spectators. The first tetradrachms of the Caesarea Mint were struck in the reign of Caracalla, AD 198-217. The coins were struck AD 215-217, no doubt to help finance Caracalla's ambition of a large-scale war with the Parthians. All the provincial mints at that time had a mintmark in the form of a symbol on the reverse beneath the eagle, & the mintmark for Caesarea was flaming torch entwined by a serpent. Later issues have a bull's head above the torch. The coins were made of billon with an average weight of 12.94 gm, & a silver content of 35.59 %. JUDAEA. Caesarea Maritima, Caracalla, AD 198-217 (struck 215-217), Billon Tetradrachm: 25 mm, 14.69 gm, 1 h. Obverse: Laureate head facing right. Reverse: Eagle with spread wings, head left, holding a wreath in his beak, standing on a serpent entwined torch. Prieur 1660/1661 (obverse/reverse). Al Kowsky Collection. Attributing these coins to an exact Prieur number can be a real challenge. Prieur's book THE SYRO-PHOENICIAN TETRADRACHMS AND THEIR FRACTIONS, from 57 BC to AD 253, Copyright 2000 has seen many changes since the book was printed. Today many more varieties have been added & the numbers cited by Prieur can no longer be used as a guide to rarity. A complete overhaul to his corpus needs to be done by some ambitious scholar. The main varieties of the obverse include the treatment of Caracalla's bust, the breakpoint in the inscription, & the treatment in the Greek letter omega. Notice the break in the obverse inscription on the coin pictured below is different than the coin pictured above. The coin pictured below also has a slight drapery visible on the bust that is absent on the above coin. JUDAEA. Caesarea Maritima, Caracalla AD 198-217 (struck 215-217) Billon Tetradrachm: 26 mm, 13.81 gm, 6 h. Prieur 1659A. NGC Ch XF, Strike 5/5, Surface 4/5. Ex Al Kowsky Collection. The letter omega appears in obverse inscriptions in upper or lower case, & this helps determine what Prieur number it is. The upper-case omega appears only on rare coins. .................................................. .................................................. In the past many Caesarea tetradrachms have sold for shockingly high prices, buyers taking at face value the number of coins cited by Prieur as accurate measures of rarity. The most common of all Caesarea tetradrachms are Prieur 1659, which he cited 28 examples. He also cited only one example of Prieur 1659A, the 2nd coin pictured in this thread. I have personally seen 6 examples of this type. The coin pictured below is an example of Prieur 1659 that sold in CNG E-Auction 350, lot 422, with an estimate of $150. It sold for $5,750 ! The coin pictured below is another example of Prieur 1659 that sold in CNG E-Auction 357, lot 317, with an estimate of $200. Despite being superior to the coin pictured above it sold for $546, a more realistic price . I recently discovered an obverse die match for a coin type the same as mine from a Savoca auction, but the reverse dies are different. See the photos below . Photo Credits: All photos courtesy of the following, Heritage Auctions, Dallas, TX CNG, Lancaster, PA Savoca Coins, Munich, Germany Wikipedia References: A type corpus of THE SYRO-PHOENICIAN TETRADRACHMS AND THEIR FRACTIONS, From 57 BC to AD 253, Copyright 2000, Michel & Karin Prieur The Coins of Roman Antioch, Copyright 2007, Richard McAlee An Outline of Ancient Greek Coins, Copyright 1964, Zander Klawans CoinArchives LLC Wikipedia CT members are welcome to add to this thread .
I'm not going to repost every single coin again, but at the CT link below is my Caracalla tets. None are from Caesarea Maritima though. https://www.cointalk.com/threads/unintentional-set-building.374152/
Thanks for the link Mat, you do have a nice group of Roman provincial tets. Maybe you can add a Judaean tet to that group some day. The Judaean series is very popular & not as prolific as other Syro-Phoenician tets, unfortunately they're expensive too .
