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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;John Anthony, post: 2265441, member: 42773&quot;]A provincial issue of Septimius Severus, Petra. The most interesting facet of this coin is that Tyche holds a stele, or idol of the Nabataeans. Throughout their history as an independent culture, the Nabataeans maintained a proscription against graven images, akin to but less rigorous than that of their neighbors, the Judaeans. (The Nabataeans did in fact portray their kings and queens on coinage and statuary, and their idols occasionally have crudely anthopomorphic features.)</p><p><br /></p><p>This coin type is a curious admixture of traditional Nabataean beliefs and Roman religion, the two of which sometimes enjoyed a certain harmony, and at other times were decidedly at war. Certain cults among the Nabataeans would adopt foreign religions and their iconography, only to be persecuted by traditionalists. (Many statues of foreign gods are found intentionally defaced on Nabataean sites.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Septimius Severus&#039; reign falls long after the assimilation of Nabataea as <i>Provincia Arabia</i>, but still finds the culture of Petra stubbornly adhering to their ancestral beliefs. In fact, their proscription against graven images would be taken up and magnified by Islam.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]450473[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>A Nabataean eye-idol discovered at Ez Zantur. <a href="http://www.auac.ch/iezp/season2000/iezp_2000_text07.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.auac.ch/iezp/season2000/iezp_2000_text07.html" rel="nofollow">Source</a></p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://www.auac.ch/iezp/season2000/iezp_2000_text07.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.auac.ch/iezp/season2000/iezp_2000_text07.html" rel="nofollow">[ATTACH=full]450476[/ATTACH] </a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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