I finally got around to doing a proper write-up of the Phoenician coin I bought at the Baltimore show last week: Phoenicia, Arados. King Gerashtart (Gerostrates) (c.350-332 BC), Regnal Year 15. AR stater (17mm, 10.38g). Obverse: Bust of Ba'al-Arwad (Lord of Arados) right. Reverse: Galley right on waves within pellet border, Phoenician inscription above MA 15. Cf. Sear "Greek Coins and Their Values" 5977. This coin: Ex CNG 311, lot 842 at $360, ex CNG 249, lot 189 at $380. Purchased from Del Parker. Arados (modern Arwad, Syria) is located on an island about 2 miles off the eastern Mediterranean coast. Although not as large as its fellow Phoenician cities Sidon and Tyre, it has an equally long history. It was captured by the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III in 1472 BC, and is mentioned in the campaign records of Ramesses II; it is also mentioned in the Biblical books of Genesis and Ezekiel. Like the rest of Phoenicia, it was subject to the Achaemenid Persians, and it formed a loose league with Sidon and Tyre. Arados submitted to Alexander the Great without a fight, and even sent ships to help him conquer Tyre. (So much for their alliance.) The city continued to be of some importance through Seleucid and Roman times, but has declined since then; although still inhabited, the population is just 4,400. The design is pretty standard for pre-Hellenistic Phoenicia, with a bearded local deity on obverse and a Phoenician galley on reverse. Interestingly, both the CNG website and the label from Del Parker state that this is from Regnal Year 5, not 15. Phoenician letters and numbers do vary a fair bit in inscriptions, but reading the inscription (from right to left) we have: M A 10 1 1 1 1 1. All the citations I could find state that the reverse inscription reads M A (year). I think the previous sellers misread the numeral 10 (looks like a capital lambda) as the Phoenician letter for P, or perhaps just ignored it, only noticing the five 1s in the date and not paying attention to the lettering of the inscription. This is another example of why it is important to carefully read the inscriptions on all your coins, not just the ones that use Greek or Latin scripts. I like this coin quite a bit- like my recent Tyre coin, it manages to fit all the important design features on an irregularly-shaped flan. Please post your relevant coins here.
If any group of people earned the right to place ships on their coins; it was the Phoenicians. This is an excerpt from a translation I own of "The Histories," by Herodotus. "Libya is washed on all sides by the sea except where it joins Asia, as was first demonstrated, so far as our knowledge goes, by the Egyptian king Necho, who, after calling off the construction of the canal between the Nile and the Arabian gulf, sent out a fleet manned by a Phoenician crew with orders to sail west about and return to Egypt and the Mediterranean by way of the Straits of Gibraltar. The Phoenicians sailed from the Arabian gulf into the southern ocean, and every autumn put in at some convenient spot on the Libyan coast, sowed a patch of ground, and waited for next year's harvest. Then, having got in their grain, they put to sea again, and after two full years rounded the Pillars of Heracles in the course of the third, and returned to Egypt. These men made a statement which I do not myself believe, though others may, to the effect that as they sailed on a westerly course round the southern end of Libya, they had the sun on their right - to northward of them. This is how Libya was first discovered by sea" You read that correctly. It was recorded that around 600 BC, the Phoenicians sailed around Africa, under Necho's flag. With Autumn stops and sitting outside of the coast several miles; it would be safe to say they had a 20,000-25,000 nautical mile voyage around a continent with 19,000 miles of coast. My contribution from the Purple People: PHOENICIA, Byblos (Gebal). Ozbaal. Circa 394-352 BC. AR Shekel. Three hoplites, holding shields, on galley left above waves, prow ending in lion's head; below, hippocamp left above murex shell, `Z (in Phoenician) above dorsal fin / Lion attacking bull left; ‘ZB’L MLK GBL (“Ozbaal, king of Gebal” in Phoenician) above. 13.3g 25.2mm
