Phoenician stater

Th

Thank you for your research

Thank you for all the research, and yes the CNG coin does look like mine. Nice to see that I only paid $90 more (considering buyers premium and exchange rate) than what it sold for almost 10 years ago.

I only have one question remaining, and I’m not imply you have to answer it as you have spent enough time already researching my coin. What is the third letter ‘O’ (reading light to left) mean?

 

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Welcome! And, Very impressive example. I have a little obol-sized one. The ship motif is cool, but so is the Phoenician script. It's fun, specifically on ancient coins, to see the affinities between different Semitic alphabets. Particularly between Phoenician, like this, archaic Hebrew, on Hasmonean lepta, and the Syriac-inspired Ge'ez on later Aksumite coins. In both of the latter instances, the relative angularity of the letter forms, relative to written texts, serves to emphasize the similarities.

 

Mine not as nice as the OP coin. I still love it.


Phoenicia, Arados
Coin: Silver Stater
- Laureate head of Baál Arwad with full eye right
Phoenician letters aleph (´), aleph (´) & mem (M) above - Galley sailing right above waves (three lines) with figure of Pataikos right, all within dotted square border
Mint: Arados (348/7-339/8 BC)
Wt./Size/Axis: 9.22g / 17-19mm / -
References:

• cf. HGC 10, 32-6
• Cf. Betlyon 26

In hand, more silver than gold in colour.

 

while I can echo the explanation of the first two letters (right to left) with this quote:

-The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean

On the third letter - I can only give you the name of the letter: not clear what it represents. Although as I am curious to hear more, I'll make uninformed connections so that others more expert can comment. I am interested to know if there is more meaning that can be read into these letters e.g. I have read that these letters are derived from heiroglyphs and mem comes from "water", aleph a symbol for "strong"/"strength", and ayin for "eye"...need someone who actually knows something about reading Phoenician writing to weigh in (unfortunately, I don't fit that category)

This article may be worth reading - or could be a false lead in your investigation. Plate 21,1 does show a coin similar to yours and reads:


- ELAYI, J. (2007). Gerashtart, King of the Phoenician City of Arwad in the 4th cent. BC. The Numismatic Chronicle (1966-), 167, 99-104

 

I think we've got a Numismatist in the house!!!

 

I was tempted to say something like : "sticks and stones..." but instead I'll ask if +VGO.DVCKS has something to do with Oregon?

 

PHOENICIA TYRE AE20 7g 76 BCE Turret hd Tyche palm branch - Galley prow volute aphlaston at stern Phoenican letters BMC 26
Ex: @Bing

 

Beautiful stater @Egry (and others)! I just have the pint-sized, economy issue.
It is a whopping 7 mm., and .76 gr.

My research pegs it as: Betlyon 13. HGC, 10, #46 (R1).

 

The Phoenician letter O is a consonant. It has nothing to do with our Latin vowel O. If I want to write Astarte in Phoenician, I will start with O. The same will apply to Abdashtart. The Phoenician alphabet had no vowels. The Greeks added vowels to the first known Phoenician alphabet.
The consonant O does not exist in Latin, nor in Greek. It's typically Semitic and called "Ayn" to mean "Eye" because it has a round shape like an eye. It exist in the Hebraic and Arabic alphabets, among other Semitic languages.

 

I don't usually say this, but, LOL!!!
Sadly, the name has nothing to do with Oregon. It comes directly from the avatar, about which I should have made a separate post. ...For instance, had I known what I was doing in the first place. The coin is a denier of Hugues /Hugh IV, duke of Burgundy 1218-1272 (funly contemporaneous to Henry III of England). It's a late issue, with the coin legends fully 'catching up,' in the operant medium, with Gothic letter forms. (With die engraving, especially in this period, there was a Lot of time lag.)
The legend goes: "+VGO BVRGVNDIE," with "DVX," horizontally, in the field. "VGO [...] DVX." Anglicized, dumbly (especially since, where pronunciation of Medieval Latin is concerned, it's probably off), as, ...drum-roll, please... "+VGO.DVCKS."
Sadly, I don't have a picture of the reverse, although I've got both sides of an example that's no better than this, from the scarcer mint of Auxonne. (This one is from Dijon --thank you, in France, they do mustard, along with wine and cheese. All highly recommended!)
Anyway, Seriously, Thanks for asking. How many other people have been scratching their heads?

 

Lol, sadly, I too never called you onto the mat. Years ago, I lived in Oregon (that’s’ “OryGun”, folks, have family that graduated from U of Oregon... I kept seeing your name, and instantly thought Oregon.

Dopey ‘ole me...

 

...Um, to come clean, I began my academic life in Oregon. One of the memorable things about the experience was how many Deadheads there were, as of the end of the '70's. On the peripheries, but very visible. I also met the late, lamented Tom Cederlind, Numismatiste Extraordinaire, who was based in Portland. I was selling off some of my first, juvenile collection (running to later Roman), and he was impressed, as of then, by how comprehensiveness it was, for an assemblage of mostly bottom- and second-shelf material.

 

When we select our Arados staters we have to decide what we will give up since very few have all of the design. I picked this one with most of the ship and legend but lost every drop of the ocean. Rounder coins have some of everything but tend to lose something I wanted. It is good there are so many of these so we each can find a fit.

 

Thank you. As in, for the observation, never mind your reply.
To wallow in the obvious, you run into that everywhere with ancient and medieval. Salian denars from Germany and the Low Countries (11th -early 12th c.) are one more random example. It's a shame, since the designs are as ambitious as anything being done in Europe. (...Well, except for any number of the more ambitious coinages of Henry I of England. And there, the line of influence is reasonably clear.) But the strikes are often absolutely atrocious. Literally as much as half the motif can be Gone, since the coiner was too hungover, or whatever, to strike it in the first place.
(Sorry, but) in a related context, that kind of haphazard approach continues with other and later issues from the Low Countries. I wonder if it had any influence on the similar "workmanship" of Norman deniers of the same period.