I just received this beauty (a drachm?), of what looks like a provincial coin. The head on the reverse looks like Trajan, but I have been researching this one with no luck so far. Any clues? Thanks!
Doesn't look much like Hadrian on the obverse which is what I would maybe expect, if the guy on the reverse is Trajan (and it sure looks like him)
Trajan, yours is much better than mine. Trajan (98 - 117 A.D.) AR Tetradrachm PHOENICIA, Tyre Dated COS 5, year 15 (111 AD) O: AVTOKP KAIC NEP TPAIANOC CEB ΓEPM ∆AK, Laureate head right set on eagle standing right; club to left. R: ∆HMAPX - EΞ IE YΠAT E, laureate bust of Melqart draped in lion-skin. 24mm 13.7g Prieur 1515; BMC Phoenicia pg. 301, 15
Melqarth must be a lot like Hercules. See the lion-skin tied around his neck? Trajan, 98-117 24 mm. Struck 110/111
What a beautiful piece is the OP coin. What’s the weight? It has a fine classical style, the god Melqart looking more a character, less a caricature.
There are many different varieties of this tetradrachm struck in the name of Trajan. The photos of the coin below I sold at a heritage auction in January of 2018 for a bargain price of $780.00 (including the buyers premium). Melqart is another version of the god Heracles, the Phoenicians borrowed from the Greeks.