I managed to carry out my humble best shooting and soft cleaning of this bronze coin which has a tetra - style temple on reverse. The goddess within the temple is possibly "Astarte", but I'm not sure. I cannot either figure out the name of the bearded Emperor on the obverse. Please try to guess so that I could go further in my research. Thanks.
Wow, now where did you get that? I'm no coin collector, but I've got a much more solid grasp on old world history and symbolism than... most. The equilateral triangle has long been associated with magical undertakings, it gets a lot of popularity from Solomon the wise, the builder of the first temple in Israel, seen a lot in the undertaking of binding demons or spirits within vessels or statues for the purpose of providing the binder with knowledge or physical labor (i know, i know..). So this particular triangle is essentially another symbol for what the Christians call the devil or satan (or the Christian trinity, depending on who you ask, tho historically the original suggestion is the one that matters), aka Astarte like you suggest, but it looks more to me like a representation of Moloch (the Horned God) it even has the crow/raven sitting at the peak of the temple. All these different names for the same deity.. The lettering around edges and the profile of some Caesar on the opposite side give it a Roman feel/origin, everything else is making think of old Israel in the time of Solomon especially in Solomon's old age when he finally fell out of favor with the God of Abraham, choosing to allow some of his concubines who had come from foreign "heathen" lands to build temples to their own gods, Moloch being one of the deities that got his very own temple built in Israel by Solomon at some concubine's insistence. Scratch that, maybe it comes from Carthage? I wish I could make out the lettering better, I feel like we're looking at clouds and telling each other the things we see in them... Maybe a Saturnalia funny-money given to a slave on what's now called Christmas, but back when we used to call it Saturnalia slaves became masters and masters became slaves. BC Saturn = Cronos = Moloch = Baal = Astarte, and on and on the names for the same thing keep going...
Looks to be from Syria, Seleukeia Pieria. Sacred stone of Zeus Kasios within tetrastyle temple. Similar examples on Wildwinds: http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/syria/seleukeia/t.html
Thank you all for your precious comments which led me to the following suggestions and possibilities. The coin seems to be struck under Septimius Severus.The reverse shows the sacred stone of Zeus Kassios in shrine. The legend is Greek ( Roman Provincial). The nearest match I could find is the Mint of Apollonia Pontika-Thrace listed by Wildwinds under Moushmov 3184. The coin has perfectly the oval shape which matches completely another different coin listed above by colleague member ancientone reference under SNGIs 37. It could also have been struck in Aeolia Capitolina ( Jerusalem) or Syria ( most probably Seleukia Pieria). Finally The coin weighs 5.77 g.
