[ancients] ID help; is this an Elagabalus from Edessa, Mesopotamia?

This was in the Goldberg lot, in a stapled 2x2 with no information.

It looks very similar to other Edessa issues of Elagabalus but I haven't found a match.

Here's my coin, 27mm, 15.0 gm, 3 mm thick:


And here's one from wildwinds:

Mine is laureate rather than radiate and mine has a (palm) frond or something in the right hand or otherwise over the bust.

Have any of you seen one like this? I'm not sure it's even Elagabalus but his are closer in style than the Caracalla Edessa issues. No luck searching CNG and Vcoins.

 

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I don't have an answer for you, but if I had to guess, I would say the obverse portrait is that of Caracalla. Just a guess.

 

Maybe Sev. Alexander

 

I found the reference (Mionnet) free online. Using google translate to make sense of the entries (it's in French). Going through all of the entries for Edessa. Unfortunately, there are no plates for the Edessa entries.

Sev. Alex looks possible, haven't reached those entries yet. I don't think it is Caracalla because on all other Edessa issues his hair has that curly look at he has a close/curly beard, or part of a beard. Plus, on all the Caracallas I've looked at, the shield is held further forward.

 

I read through all of the Mesopotamia entries in this book and the Edessa Elagablus entry is the closest. No others mention a column. It does not mention whether the bust is laureate or radiate. Hmm. My best guess at this point is that it is a variant of this type.

Here is the Mionnet entry:


With the help of Google Translate (which often is not very accurate),

(obverse) laureate of Elagable , bust left , right hand raised , left arm armed with a shield
(reverse) Tourrelée and veiled woman sitting on a rock, left, holding ears of the right hand in front of her , a column at his feet, a river swimming

This is the reference cited in the wildwinds example shown in my first post. I wonder how they decided the statue was Marsyas? Seems unfitting.

 

TIF => it sounds like you're having a great time sorting through your new toys!!

=> congrats (please keep 'em coming!!)

 

Unfortunately, there are not adequate modern references for the coinage of Edessa in Mesopotamia, beyond the aforementioned Mionnet referenc, Babelon's article on the city, and BMC. The best you can do is to search Coinarchives and look for similar examples. I feel like there was a similar piece in a Pecunem auction earlier this year?

EDIT: That piece was of the radiate variety. Pecunem 4, lot 247

 

Thanks for that tip. I'll look through the Pecunem auctions. Maybe that's where I saw a similar coin before-- it looked familiar when I first saw it.

 

Looks like I've struck out, having exhausted all the resources I can think of-- wildwinds, coinproject, coinarchives, acsearch, Vcoins, Pecunem (and a few other closed auctions).

Ardatirion-- the coin you might be remembering is probably this one, the only somewhat similar Edessa provincial from Pecunem this year.


MESOPOTAMIA, Edessa. Severus Alexander (222-235). Ae.

Obv: AVT K M AΛEΞANΔPO.
Radiate, draped , and cuirassed bust left, raising hand.
Rev: MHTPO EΔECCHNωN.
Tyche seated left on rock outcropping, holding patera over alter; at feet, forepart of river-god Scyrtus swimming left.
Babelon, Edessa -; cf. BMC 77-8 (Elagabalus, for bust type); M&M Deutschland 20, lot 940.
Babelon asserts that Edessa did not receive the title Metropolis until the reign of Severus Alexander, but the presence of the title on coins in the name of Elagabalus would seem to suggest otherwise.
Condition: Very fine.
Weight: 11.0 g.
Diameter: 26 mm.

 

Yup, that's the one, as I added in an edit about two minutes after I posted! Sorry, I could've asaved you a bunch of time searching!

I think the best you can do is catalog this as a variant of the radiate variety.

 

This looks like your coin. Dealer attributed it as BMC 101, but I didn't look it up. Never trust dealer attributions.

http://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/mon...rfaces_scratch_on_reverse/186110/Default.aspx

But maybe yours is a larger denomination?

 

i was just getting ready to say you should have JA take a look at it....

BOOM!

cool coin TIF, those provincial coins can be a pain to nail down. i don't know if that's exactly it or not, it's close.

 

That could be right, John Lavender is well respected in the ACC world.

 

All I did was go looking for a similar coin because I liked it, and wouldn't mind having one in my collection. The one I posted doesn't quite pass muster for me, though. I'll take TIF's.

I don't have time to search my BM Catalogs at the moment, however. Columbus Day, outing with the kids and all...

 

Could be, John, but there are just as many difference in that Severus Alexander as with the wildwinds Elagabalus.

On the vcoins Sev. Alex: the shield is in a different position, different decorations on the shield, and I can't tell if there is a status on a column or whether that is an alter and star in the left field. Plus, SA's hair is in short curly knots (a la Caracalla), rather than smooth like my coin.

I think that vcoins example is Severus Alexander Mionnet 40.


So in a nutshell, some features of my coin resemble an Elagabalus issue and some a Severus Alexander issue. I guess that unless another one shows up, with readable legends, I just won't know

 

Someone needs to devote their life to collecting and analyzing these coins so that we have a better resource. I nominate TIF.

 

OK.

Everybody-- send me all of your coins so that I can study them. It may take the rest of my lifetime, hope you're not in a rush

 

hmmmmmm....here's a severus alexander with the shield in the right spot, but a different tyche reverse...and a different shield.



...so no help at all....but yeah, i think i'd give pretty even odds for elagabalus and severus alex.

 

The description you cite from Mionnet matches your coin [almost] perfectly. It does say that the bust is laureate (not radiate as mentioned in the WW description). The only thing missing from the description, compared with your coin, is the statue.

 

And then there's Batman.