any Phoenician experts? Athenian imitative owl

24mm., 16.9g.

I purchased this cool imitative owl, for the novelty of the cool scorpion countermark. Robinjojo of numisforums thinks that it may be an Egyptian variety.

I was wondering if anyone could decipher the Phoenician graffiti on the reverse?

Are there any other opinions on the general origin of the imitative? The original listing didn't have any special information, other than the size and weight.

This was mistakenly posted in the coin chat forum. I'm hoping to delete that one.

 

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Any ideas or theories, GinoLR?

 

Well... This coin looks very much like the tetradrachms of the big Rafah hoard found in 2010, but it's not one of them.
I don't know if the obv. cmk is a scorpion. There are perhaps two circular countermarks, the smaller one partially obliterating the larger one.
On the reverse, there is a cmk that is the same as on one or two owls from the Rafah hoard. For the graffiti, I cannot recognize Aramaic script, but it's a possibility. A real specialist of Aramaic would be needed.

 

Thanks!

I'll examine more closely when the coin arrives.

Perhaps someday I'll get a 'real' owl, but opportunity cost makes it tough for the budget buyer to justify the cost for an official classic one. If this is an Egyptian issue, then I'm still excited.

Anyway, it was either this or an oversized, but kinda overpriced, Philip sestertius.