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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 24831351, member: 128351&quot;]In the Art Institute of Chicago, they have a specimen of this coin which is the most abominably tooled ancient coin... </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1590180[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.artic.edu/artworks/142497/coin-portraying-emperor-trajan" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.artic.edu/artworks/142497/coin-portraying-emperor-trajan" rel="nofollow">https://www.artic.edu/artworks/142497/coin-portraying-emperor-trajan</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Now let&#039;s be more serious.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>On these Trajanic coins of Alexandria, the legend ΒΑΛΑΝΗΟΥ (?) is probable. But the building is certainly not a bath, even less the Baths of Trajan built in Rome. The triangular pediment with a globule (the sun?) in the middle is never found on baths. In ancient times the triangular pediment had a very clear signification: this stela, this building is sacred. These pediments were only found on temples, shrines, funerary stelae, sarcophagi, on top of niches with the statue of a god... They were also found on triumphal arches like in Orange, or on the imperial entrance of the Colosseum in Rome. Never on baths, as far as I know. </p><p><br /></p><p>Monuments depicted on coins always were monuments of the city which minted the coin. You will not find Alexandrian monuments on coins from Rome, and not Roman monuments on coins from Alexandria. This tetrastyle facade with a pediment, an attic and a quadriga with trophies and captives was most probably a religious monument of Alexandria.</p><p><br /></p><p>Could the legend ΒΑΛΑΝΗΟΥ mean &quot;of the bath&quot;? (it&#039;s at the genitive form). Nobody considered another possibility. The Greek name βαλανῖον can be &quot;bath&quot; but is also the name Bαλανῖον of the idol of Jupiter Heliopolitanus at Heliopolis (Baalbek) in Lebanon. <i>Balanion</i> is derived from <i>Baalan</i>, &quot;Our Lord&quot; in Phoenician Aramaic. I think we could consider this possibility : a shrine of Zeus of Heliopolis in Alexandria. Why not?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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