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Message:: [QUOTE="GinoLR, post: 25933846, member: 128351"]The bronze coinage of ancient Carthage is rather boring. During 250 years, from c. 400 to 146 BC, it's always the same types : on obverse the head of a goddess (likely Tanit), on reverse a horse. There are only minor variations : the goddess may be wearing a necklace or not, have corn-ears in her hair or not; the horse may be standing, jumping, galloping, looking backwards, or it's just a horse's head. Sometimes some symbols are added : a palm-tree for example, a caduceus, an egyptian-style uraeus... Never any legend, just sometimes single punic letters. This conservatism is typical of the period. After all, Athens always represented a head of Athena and an owl on all her coins for several centuries. On Carthaginian coins, the palm-tree is a kind of legend : in Greek the word "phoinix" means "palm-tree" but also "Phoenician", "Punic" (in Latin, "Punicus"). The Carthaginians in their language called themselves "Cananaeans", and the rebus on the coins only works in Greek. Here is a mini-collection of Carthage bronze coins : [ATTACH=full]1650722[/ATTACH] 1 : Carthage, c. 400-350 BC, AE unit (globular flan). AE 16 mm, 4.50 g.2 : Carthage, c. 400-350 BC, AE unit. AE 16 mm, 2.42 g.3 : Carthage, c. 300-264 BC, shekel? AE 19 mm, 6.42 g.4 : Carthage, c. 201-195 BC, 3 shekels. AE 27 mm, 21.05 g.5 : Carthage or African mint, 2nd half of 2nd c. BC, 3 shekels. AE 26.5 mm, 11.12 g. Number 5 is probably the very last coinage issued by Carthage. Many specimens have been found there by archaeologists in the destruction layers well dated to 146 BC. It was obviously the money circulating in the city during the siege by Scipion Aemilian. Of course, Carthage would be later rebuilt as a Roman colony and there would be many Roman, late Roman, Vandalic, Byzantine coins minted at Carthage. But that's another story.[/QUOTE]

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