Petra-Nabetaean Aretas IV 9 BC - 40AD

My latest ancient: Petra-Nabetaean - obverse Aretas IV and Queen Shuqailat; - reverse 2 cornucopias with the legends "Aretas, Shuqailat". 9 BC-40 AD

 

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Interesting piece, curious to know more about it. I guess it's greek?

 

Yes, Greek.

According to some research I've done on it..... The Nabetaeans were traders in Frankincense and it was believed to be Kings bearing gifts that visited Jesus (as in "We Three Kings....) and that this King would have been one of them. Now, it is accepted to have been wisemen not the Kings.

 

Nice & adds more interest to it.

 

Y'know, I thought I had added that to the original post but I must have deleted it by mistake. Thank you for asking about it!

 

Cool addition. I have a similar but in wretched condition :/

 

No, it is not Greek. You can tell by the lettering. It looks like Phoenician, not like Greek. Also, if you go here (http://nabataea.net/) you will find out more than you cared to know. For one thing, they traded widely in everything. Also, when the Romans came, they abandoned Petra and evaporated back into the desert.

The "mystery" of the Nabatean "empire" comes from our own expectations of "empires" being made by the sword. We want kings, borders, armies, and all that. That is the warrior or guardian mentality. The trader's way is different from that.

This is a problem we have in numismatics because of the wider culture we are in. Not much has been written well about business. There were Benjamin Franklin (The Way to Wealth here) and Adam Smith, of course. Then Herbert Spencer. In the previous generation, Ayn Rand was better known than Jane Jacobs but Jacobs's The Economy of Cities and Systems of Survival should be classics. Today, we have Dierdre McCloskey's Bourgeois Virtues. I am sure that you never heard of any of these in school -- but you know of Karl Marx...

Then, we try to figure out the history of money.

A hundred and 150 years ago, British numismatists did great work organizing the artifacts of the past, but none of them ever worked in a shop. So, they made some serious mistakes trying to understand the modes and methods of ancient coinage in commerce.

Hey, look, I'm standing on soap box... where did that come from? ...

Anyway, the coin does not have Greek letters. Meshorer called it "Aramaic" and he would know. If you goto CoinArchives and enter "Nabataea" or follow this link you can see the full range of their issues. You might wonder why such successful traders struck such unimpressive coins. You might wonder why coins were invented in Lydia, not Phoenicia...

 

Thank you, Mike for the clarification. On the Forum Ancient website, the Nabetaean coins are listed under Greek coins/Hellenistic Monarchies/Nabetaean Kingdom. That's where I picked up the error.

 

Mike already added more info than I have the time (or patience!) to type. And good, accurate info at that. One more point of clarification - you title your post "Petra-Nabataean Aretas I." Petra is the mint. You may more accurately title the coin/post "Kingdom of Nabataea, Aretas I. Petra mint"

 

I appreciate all the help and information.

Collecting ancients is a whole new world to me. Some of the misinformation I posted was from my dealer's translation from his seller's language. More than likely, it was translated verbatim.

 

I agree with the fact that Nabateans are not Greek. However, one has to be careful since in ancient coinage most coins are classified as either Roman or Greek unless it happens to be Chinese or maybe Indian. So in that classification it is "greek", then Nabatean, then the ruler. I know of hundreds of cultures who would roll over in their grave at the thought at anyone calling them Greek, (Carthage, Persian, Celtic, Axumite, Himyarite, etc), yet they are classified that way by us simply as a means of quickly delineating them from Roman.

I like these coins a lot. There seems to be a large hoard on the market recently, as I was able to pick up about 200 of these. It happens, a hoard of these were on the market about 8 years ago too. Long time tip is to buy when you can buy when these hoards appear, because they will go away.

Btw, check out websites on Petra if you want to see the amazing place where this coin was struck. Like many have said, if coins could talk!

 

If you didn't read medoraman's last post, you should. Coin collectors tend to overdo the forcing of things into pigeonholes and the one I find most offensive is that ancient coins must be either Greek or Roman. Part of it comes from David Sear's books Greek Coins and their Values series which included a lot of places that never considered themselves 'Greek' even if some of them used Greek letters on their coins.

It is not so bad to consider coins like this 'Greek' if you look at it like this: Coins originated in three places. In China, coins were cast in molds and tend to be round with square holes. In India, rough cut slabs of silver received a series of overlapping punches. In the Mediterranean, 'Greek' cultures made coins by striking blanks between dies engraved with a design. If we consider this last group 'of the Greek style' then I can deal with calling them 'Greek'. Today, all coins seem to be descendants of the 'Greek' style and we often overlook that it was not always that way.

 

Great clarification Doug, much better explained than I hamfistedly attempted.

 

thats why my gallery says Greek/Greekish

 

More info: I was just in Jordan and found one of these for myself. Aretas IV was a very prominent ruler who controlled from Petra (where this was minted) to Damascus. His daughter married Herod and lived with him for a while until he divorced her and took uo his brother's wife, Herodias. Herodias' daughter was Salome, who asked for the head of John the Baptist.
Also, in the stories of the Apostle Paul, we hear that Paul had to be lowered from a window by a basket to flee the Damascene king...who was this very same Aretas IV.
Finally, tradition states that one of the three kings, Balthasar, was the Arabian King. Some speculate it was Aretas who brought Frankencense to baby Jesus because Aretas' kingdom were major traders in Frankencense.

 

Wonderful information guys!!

That's a very interesting coin @ikandiggit!!!

I'm sure @John Anthony would love it!!

 

I was going to start a new post for this coin but I'll just tag it into this one.
Hopefully someone can help me with this Nabataean bronze issue which has been sitting on my desk for over two years. I just can't seem to find one like it on the standard research sites. Here it is:
There doesn't appear to be a single aramaic character on either side on this 12mm bronze. Any ideas?

 

This is a minute bronze of Aretas IV, issued during the early part of his reign. Your coin does in fact have two letters on it. The caduceus bisects the letter heth at the top and the letter samekh at the bottom. I have been working on a website dedicated to Nabataean coins. The page that explains these symbols is here.

The minters of these coins were given carte blanche as far as the field marks were concerned. There are at least 50 minor varieties. Here are some of mine. The bottom left coin is the same variety as yours.

 

Thanks very, very much. I never knew there were this many variations; no wonder I couldn't find it. Your site is now bookmarked and I can finally say goodbye to this one.

 

If it's for sale, send me a PM.