This coin is believed to have been struck at Tyros, Ammanitis (today the Qasr al-Abd palace, near Amman, Jordan). This was the palace of the powerful Jewish Tobiad family. It was struck under Hyrcanus of Jerusalem, the Ptolemaic governor of Ammanitis, c. 200 - 169 B.C. This coin is imitative of a tetradrachm type struck for Ptolemy II at Ptolemais-Ake mint, 254/3 B.C. The type was part of a large imitative issue that copied types struck by Ptolemy I through Ptolemy V. The coins have long been recognized as imitative due to their barbarous style and blunders. In addition to style differences, the prototype for this coin has a reverse legend ΠTOΛEMAIOY ΣΩTHPOΣ and is dated ΛB (year 32), blundered to AB on this coin. Production of these imitatives was long assumed to be contemporaneous with their prototypes. In 2013, however, a hoard was found and the earliest coin types were as fresh as those of Ptolemy IV and V. It was also noted that imitatives of early Ptolemy I tetradrachms originally struck at a 25 obols standard did not replicate the heavy weight of their prototypes. The imitative mint at Tyros probably struck from the Fifth Syrian War, 202-195 B.C. to 169 B.C. Aumaître and Lorber identify this type as likely the last from the mint and assign a probable date of 169 B.C. when the Seleukid king Antiochus IV seized the Tobiad family properties and Hyrkanos committed suicide. | |