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Message:: [QUOTE="TIF, post: 3609090, member: 56859"]Thanks!  That's not a bad transcription! I do have it written out because as you could probably tell, I read it for the recorded narration.  After flailing about for a while I realized I had to first lock in the narration before I could assemble the video.  I wrote it out like a screenplay, with "camera" directions in italics.  That helped a bit Here's the transcription with the "camera" parts removed.  I may have changed a word here and there while reading it for the recording. ......... Ancient Coins of Melita ......... If I say Malta, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Bogart?  Fluffy lap dogs?  The Malta Conference? The biblical apostle Paul?    Probably not ancient coins though, right?  Did you know that Malta produced its own coins during a very brief time in ancient history? Around 218 BCE, shortly after the island became a Roman municipium, Malta, then known as Melita, produced pseudo-autonomous bronze coins.   Details are sketchy but find evidence suggests the period of locally produced coinage was brief, lasting less than 200 years.  During this time, the scant legends on these coins went from Punic to Greek to Latin.  After production ceased, no coins were struck on the island until the early modern era.  Not counting variations and repeat issues, only eight different designs were struck in ancient Melita.    I was fortunate enough to acquire examples of two of the most unusual types, both of particular interest to me because of their iconography:  Egyptian!  Why do coins from a tiny island in the center of the Mediterranean sea depict deities of a civilization 1500 kilometers away?    Phoenician traders were present on the island beginning around 900 BCE and they certainly had exposure to and assimilated some Egyptian gods. Carthaginians came in the sixth century and Romans in the third century BCE.   Naturally these immigrants and settlers would have an influence on the design of local coinage but some of the iconography seems almost inexplicable. The first of the iconographically Egyptian coins were struck around 175 BCE.  The obverse depicts the veiled head of a female deity facing right, perhaps Tanit or Astarte.  The reverse is an unmistakably Egyptian scene:  Isis and her sister, Nephtys, flanking the mummy of their brother Osiris.  Above are Punic letters which transliterate to aleph nun nun.  These three Egyptian gods each had many roles so many interpretations are possible but this particular scene is the mourning of Osiris by Isis and Nephtys.  They are wailing and trying to restore to life their murdered and  dismembered brother.  Why, though-- why is this scene on a coin of Melita?  Is it an appeal for regeneration and fertility of the land?  Melita was not agriculturally rich so perhaps they were doing everything possible to please gods who influence the land?  Or, does the mourning scene reflect the loss of a person of local importance?  Perhaps there is another reason altogether, or many reasons.  Unfortunately I don’t know the answer. Of the nineteen of these coins I’ve seen in auction archives and private collections (twenty one including my two examples), none are going to win any beauty contests for condition.  Nonetheless, I was thrilled to acquire them.  With scarce or rare coins, you take what you can get.  Of course, rarity isn’t everything.  As the saying goes, in ancient coin collecting nothing is as common as a rare coin. The second type with Egyptian-ish design was struck slightly later and may have involved two emissions, one around 160 and 125 BCE.  The obverse shows the bust of Isis or Astarte facing left, with the symbol of Tanit before her on the earlier version and a wheat grain on the later version.  The reverse depicts a winged male figure crouching left.  The identity of this figure is debatable.  Some authors call him Osiris; others note a similarity to the unnamed solar deity seen on classical era coins of Mallos.   Maltese archaeologist and historian Tancred Gouder theorized the figure is of Ba’al Hammon, a principle Punic deity. Information about these Melitan coins is somewhat scanty and this video does not do justice to the many questions raised, but perhaps after gathering, reading, and assimilating available books, papers, and articles I’ll try again.  Don’t hold your breath though. Thanks for watching! That's only a page and a half of script yet the video runs more than 5 minutes.  This is why I much prefer reading to watching TV or videos... reading is much quicker than listening to someone speak the same words![/QUOTE]

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