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Obverse: Laureate head of Melqarth right.
Reverse: Eagle standing on the mast of a ship, carrying palm under
right wing.
The reference used for this
coin is The British Museum Catalogs on Greek Coins, Volume 26.
Reputed to have been a colony of its rival city, Sidon, Tyre was one
of the principal ports of the Phoenician coast and probably the first
city in the area to issue its own coinage. It put up a stubborn
resistance to the advance of Alexander the Great in 332 B.C., but
eventually fell after a famous siege. Despite this calamity it
remained a place of great commercial importance in later Hellenistic and
Roman times.
In the centuries following the Macedonian conquest Tyre
was subject first to the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt then, at the end of
the 3rd Century B.C., to the Seleukids of Syria. In 126/5 B.C. the
city regained its autonomy and commenced a remarkable issue if silver
and bronze coins extending well into the Roman Imperial period.
The famous silver tetradrachms ('shekels') of this series have achieved
some notoriety as the most likely coinage with which Judas was paid his
'thirty pieces of silver' for the betrayal of Christ.
Numismatic Authenticator -
Dave Wagner, American Numismatic Association Member 172893 |
