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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;John Anthony, post: 2245613, member: 42773&quot;]Ok, well my tray of crappy copies chronicles the development of the earliest Nabataean coinage, 12 coins. I&#039;ll try to keep it brief for the sake of a succinct overview.</p><p><br /></p><p>Coins 1-4 are known as the Proto-Nabataean overstrikes. The Athena/Nike typology of Alexandrian staters was borrowed to strike these small bronzes. Sometimes they come in larger sizes, like coin 1, but typically they are smaller, like coins 2 and 3. Coins 1-3 are struck over Ptolemaic bronzes. Coin 4 is struck over a Seleucid issue. The overstrikes date to about the mid-third century BC and later, ending sometime in the late second to early first century. It&#039;s possible these coins were produced at Gaza.</p><p><br /></p><p>At that point, coins 5 and 6 are minted in Damascus by Aretas II, still copying the Athena/Nike design, but now struck on blank flans. They exhibit a &quot;high Greek&quot; style.</p><p><br /></p><p>During the early part of the first century, the style changes to resemble coins of Alexander Balas (coins 7 and 8). The bust becomes masculine, wearing a Boeotian helmet, rather than the Corinthian helmet of Athena.</p><p><br /></p><p>Coins 9 and 10 are barbarous. The busts are distinctly Arabic in character, and Nike is drawn rather like a stick figure. I believe these coins represent the first minting efforts at Petra.</p><p><br /></p><p>Coins 11 and 12 are not properly Nabataean, but Damascene City issues of Aretas II. When he was invited by the locals to be their protector at Damascus, the mint simply put his name on various coins of Seleucid design. These aren&#039;t copies <i>per se</i> - just a continuation of older city coins with a new ruler.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]443526[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>That sums up the overstrikes/copies of early Nabataean coinage. In the late first century BC, Malichus I begins minting the first truly Nabataean coins, with Nabataean script (an offshoot of Imperial Aramaic), a life-like bust of the king on the obverse, and variations of Greek motifs on the reverse, in this case an eagle...</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]443532[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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