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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;John Anthony, post: 2131155, member: 42773&quot;]I&#039;ve been reexamining my Nabataean tesserae with the purpose of attribution. The primary scholarship on these coins comes from Oliver Hoover, &quot;A Reassessment of Nabataean Lead Coinage in Light of New Discoveries<i>,&quot; </i>from <i>Coinage of the Caravan Kingdoms</i>, 2010.</p><p><br /></p><p>In it, he describes a tessera, A1, which is currently unique as: &quot;<i>Obv.</i>: Crude head of Nike wearing crested Attic helmet r. <i>Rev.</i>: winged Nike standing l., holding wreath (?).&quot; The coin was sold from the D. Pichler collection by CNG in 2003. I believe I&#039;ve discovered a second example.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]405780[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Now I&#039;ve posted a number of the early Athena/Nike imitative types, but this coin does not correspond to any of those pieces in style, fabric, or dimensions. Here is a casual shot with the piece next to other Nabataean issues. The top coins are the anonymous Athena/Nike types in Alexandrian and Seleucid style. The bottom left is&nbsp; another tessera, the last is the above pictured coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]405782[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>The coin in question shares the same dimensions as all other Nabataean tesserae, and actually weighs the same as Hoover&#039;s example: 2.2g. The color is darker than other lead coins, but &quot;lead&quot; coins are made of various alloys anyway. If you could squish them like fishing weights, likely none of them would have survived the centuries. Perhaps my coin has a bit more copper alloyed with the lead than most.</p><p><br /></p><p>Neither does this coin fit into the barbarous imitations of the Athena/Nike types, which seem to depict busts with Arabian features, have better portrayals of Nike (however crude), and are generally around 3g in weight. (I believe these are the first coins minted in Petra, but I can&#039;t prove it.)</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]405787[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Hoover comments on the stylistic differences between A1 and all other Athena/Nike types and concludes...</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;The image of Athena on the lead piece is far more crudely executed than on the bronze issues. Not only does she lack her characteristic curls of hair and the bulb attachment for her helmet crest, but she also seems to wear a different type of helmet. Because of these stylistic differences it is likely that the lead coin was not produced at the same time as the bronze series. Instead, it should probably be seen as a later imitation. Since the hoard evidence indicates that the imitative Athena/Nike bronzes continued to circulate into the first century AD there is no way to be certain when it was made.&quot; (CCK, p. 110)</p><p><br /></p><p>There also appears to be something above Nike&#039;s head, a star, or a cross symbol? There is no letter or numeral in the Nabataean alphabet which corresponds to such a mark. (The number 4 is a cross, but it is always rotated to look like the Roman X.) Is it just a deceptive anomaly of the flan? The only other alphabet which appeared on early Nabataean coins was Greek. Is it tau? Any thoughts welcome.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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