I really love Alexandrian coins which depict local or ethnic reverse types. My latest addition features a canopic jar ... you can't get any more Ancient Egyptian than that! Vespasian Æ Obol, 3.78g Alexandria mint, 71-72 AD Obv: ΑΥΤΟΚ ΚΑΙΣ ΣΕΒΑ ΟΥΕΣΠΑΣΙΑΝΟΥ; Head of Vespasian, laureate, r. Rev: LΔ; Canopus, r. RPC 2435 (11 spec.). Emmett 219.4 (R1). Acquired from Lodge Antiquities, January 2021. This Alexandrian ethnic type features an Osiris-Canopus jar on the reverse. Osiris here is depicted as a jar with a human head. The lid is the head of Osiris with his hair coiffed in an Egyptian style called the klaft. He is wearing a crown and the protective uraeus, or sacred cobra. His body is a Canopic jar, a vessel which held the internal organs of the deceased for the afterlife. These jars were carried by priests to symbolically transport the Nile's sacred waters during processions. The jar may possibly symbolise the abundance brought by the waters. This fertility type began showing up on the coinage in the First Century. The regnal year four issue is the most common date for this reverse under Vespasian. Please post your 'Egyptian' coins!
Nice coin! I like these too... and love Alexandrian coins. They did things a bit differently even after being folded into minting imperial coinage (ex. best style of the fel temps (along with Antioch), better style of imperial coins up through at least Valentinian). Here's my ugly but Otho:
A classic Alexandrian type! ANTONINUS PIUS Billon Tetradrachm. 11.83g, 24.7mm. EGYPT, Alexandria, RY 2 = AD 138/9. Dattari 2179; Emmett 1373.1; RPC Online 13409. O: Bare head right, with trace of drapery on shoulder. R: ETO-VC B, Osiris-Canopus, crowned with horns, disk, plumes and uraei, standing on cushion, right. Ex Robert L. Grover Collection of Roman-Egyptian Coinage, previously held by the Art Institute of Chicago (1981.445)
Cool new/ slightly used Alexandrian Vespasian @David Atherton! I too love most everything ancient Egyptian A recent T-rage purchase of mine bought specifically for the Egyptian Hemhem reverse: Trajan 25 Jan 98 - 8/9 Aug 117 A.D. dichalkon Alexandria mint, 1.660g, 14.3mm, die axis 0o obverse no legend, laureate head right; reverse no legend, Hemhem crown, date in lower field divided by ram horns; Emmett 707, F, a bit rough, ragged flan from the Ray Nouri Collection The Hemhem crown, also known as the triple Atef crown, was symbol of Pharaonic power and authority credited with magical abilities that would protect Egypt from any enemy. It originated during the 18th dynasty was first seen in an image of the pharaoh Akhenaten in a tomb at Amarna. A Hemhem crown is worn Tutankhamen on the back of the gilded throne discovered in his tomb. No examples of this type of crown are known to have survived.
@David Atherton, I love Roman Alexandrian coins with traditional Egyptian iconography rather than Greco-Roman themes (or invented deities) from the post-Pharaonic era. In fact, I had a thread a month or so ago to show all my coins fitting into that category. See https://www.cointalk.com/threads/ne...aditional-egyptian-theme.373239/#post-5395208. So congratulations on finding one! I'll show two of mine here, my own Hadrian Canopus and my Hadrian with a mummiform Ptah-Sokar-Osiris on the reverse: One small correction, concerning your statement that the jar's "lid is the head of Osiris with his hair coiffed in an Egyptian style called the klaft," to the extent it could be taken to imply that the jar was hollow. By this time, as I understand it, canopic jars had long since ceased to be hollow or actually to contain the deceased person's organs. Instead, the jar depicted was solid. Here's an excerpt from my footnote to my description of the Hadrian tetradrachm with a reverse showing a Canopic Jar of Osiris (a/k/a Osiris-Canopus Jar and Osiris-Hydreios): "See https://egypt-museum.com/post/189683370661/osiris-canopus-jar#gsc.tab=0, with photos of the Osiris-Canopus Jar from Hadrian’s Villa, now at the Vatican Museum, describing it as “A Canopic jar with the head of Osiris emerging from it. In the cult of Isis and Serapis, during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, Osiris-Canopus jars (also known as Osiris-Hydreios) were carried by priests during processions. As they are solid, each symbolically carried water from the Nile, fertility that originated from the god Osiris, one of Egypt’s earliest fertility gods. Osiris-Canopus was named after the ancient Egyptian town of Canopus, on the western bank at the mouth of the westernmost branch of the Delta known as the Canopic or Heracleotic branch – not far from Alexandria. Roman Period, ca. 131-138 AD. Grey basalt, from Hadrian’s Villa. Now in the Vatican Museums (Gregoriano Egizio). 22852.”
Thank you for pointing out that these ceremonial jars were solid. I forgot to do so in my own write-up!
Wow David, that is another great one you have added. Here is my Vespasian with Canopus.Mine is the only one known so I can forgive the condition. It is also the RPC online and Dattari plate coin. RPC online 2446 (This coin)
I have a bunch of Alexandrian coins which I have already shown and I don't have a hem-hem crown or Canopic jar yet - but I do have this Nerva type featuring a serpent with the skent crown, technically the white hedjet crown of upper Egypt combined with the deshret crown of lower Egypt. Nerva, A.D. 96-98 Type: Billon Tetradrachm, 25mm, 12.7 grams, mint of Alexandria year 96-97 A.D. Obverse: Bust of Nerva facing right, KAIS SEB AVT NEPOVAS Reverse: Agathodaemon serpent coiled with head right, holding caduceus and grain ear within coils, wearing the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. In exergue, LA. Reference: Milne 542, Dattari 638 (rare)
Hi All, (Sorry for the dark image but the coin is black and does not photograph well), Obol of Otho, Alexandria, Egypt, Year 01 (15 Jan - 25 Apr 69 CE) OBV: Otho laureate head facing right. Legend: [AYT]OKMAPKOΘωNOΣK[AIΣ ΣEB]. Dotted border. REV: Canopus of Isis facing right. In right field: A above L. Dotted border. References: Emmett-0192.01; Geissen-252 to 253 var: Legend; DAT-0331 var: Legend; RPC I-5370; M-0371; BMC-0216 var: Legend Provenance: Ex-CNA XII, Lot #17 (Kerry Keith Wetterstrom Collection - Part 1: 26 Sep 1990), sold for $50. Comments: Legend as Geissen-254, a diobol. Geissen notes two specimens with weight 2.96 and 5.49 grams. - Broucheion
I can't see the reverse very well, so I thought I'd ask what makes it a Canopus of Isis rather than Osiris? Is the head identifiably female?
Hi @DonnaML, Good point! RPC just describes it as a "canopus" (https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/1/5370). Geissen is also non-commital with "canopus". The CNG catalog says "... Canopus of Osiris right; to right, L A. Milne 371." I really can't tell for sure but now the more I look at it the more I would say it's probably Osiris, due to the headdress. Thank you for pointing that out! - Broucheion
I love me some Roman Alexandrian coinage! I just got this Hadrian canopic jar of Osiris tet this last month. I've been wanting to get a canopus coin for about 2 years now, and this one ticked the boxes in balance with my wallet. 22mm, 12.43g, Emmett 827
Thanks, @David Atherton, and everyone else, for all of these. I'm still needing my first example. ...Along with the need to reiterate the link to @DonnaML's thread, from which I learned most of whatever I know about the series: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/ne...aditional-egyptian-theme.373239/#post-5395208
That's a great canopus, to go with the weirdest-looking Hadrian portrait I think I've ever seen! Look at that mustache.
