Heritage Auctions

Weekly Auction 232003  –  17 January 2020

Heritage Auctions, Weekly Auction 232003

Ancient and World Coins

Fr, 17.01.2020, from 3:00 AM CET
The auction is closed.

Description

ZEUGITANA. Carthage. Ca. 350-320 BC. AV stater (19mm, 9.45 gm, 2h). NGC XF 5/5 - 4/5. Bust of Tanit left, hair wreathed in barley ears, wearing triple-pendant earring and necklace with seven pendants; dotted border / Horse standing right on single exergual line; single pellet under horse to upper left, single pellet at end of exergual line at right, Punic inscription in exergue, dotted border. Jenkins & Lewis IIIa 6. Jenkins and Lewis, on p.28, have this to say about the puzzling Punic inscription, which is quite well engraved on this example: "There remains the difficult question of the inscription, if such it is, which appears in the exergue in sub-group IIIa. This 'inscription' was read by Muller as (viz. from right to left EA . LE), explaining it as two personal names, on the analogy of the names of mint-magistrates on the Augustan coins of Sabratha. ...it must be admitted that it is extremely difficult to interpret the letters, if that is what they are. ...There for the present we must leave this baffling problem - and not the least baffling aspect of it is that the letters, if treated as such, as so extremely hard to interpret: the whole thing seems quite unnecessarily obscure by comparison with the inscriptions on other Punic coins of the same date, and even when looking at the Luynes specimen (no. 9-2) it is hard to avoid scepticism about the nature of the 'inscription'."

HID09801242017

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Price realized 6'500 USD
Starting price 1'000 USD
Estimate 2'000 USD
The auction is closed.
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