This
tetradrachm of
Julia Domna bothers me. The
reverse is clearly year 20 with
Caracalla and
Geta shaking
hands dating to the time immediately following the death of their father when accord between the two
had not completely failed. The problem I see is that the
obverse portrait is the
style appropriate for coins a decade earlier. At
Rome,
Domna changed her hair
style before the death of Septimius.
Emmett illustrates a late hair
obverse for
Julia under
Caracalla. He also lists all the late coins with the
legend IOYΛIA ΔOMNA
CEB MHTEP CTPA but this one is clearly the
legend with extra N as listed for late Septimius lifetime coins IOYΛIA
N ΔOMNA
CEB MHTEP CTPA. I regret I do not have a late hair Alexandrian coin to show here so I'll tack on a
Rome of the expected hair
style.
My attempts to find photos of this
type coin or any LK
Domna has not
met with
success. When did the
portrait change? When was the last use of the N
legend? I would not expect this
type to have been used for long as it would seem to be offensive to
Caracalla.
Emmett lists one
type for
Geta in year 20 (LK) but he was gone by LKA so I assume the LK reading on this coin is correct with nothing additional off
flan (always a consideration with these).
I do not own Dattari/Savio or other large
collections which I assume would shed light on the question.
Emmett lists 20 different coins of
Domna under
Caracalla but they don't seem to have been hitting the sales available online lately.
ACSearch shows one LKB with late hair. Was
Emmett wrong not to distinguish between the two legends and
portraits for LK or is this a
mule using an old
obverse die while there are late hair coins of the
type?
The LKB from
ACSearch:
Comments and, especially, images would be appreciated.