Recent Posts

1

Identification Help / Re: Sentimental about gift coin

« Last post by Johan V3 on Today at 09:26:03 am »

Trust me to have looked at the coin upside down all these years! I'm not Johan V3, but no matter. Jan, thank you so much for your trouble to reposition my coin. Any help will be greatly  appreciated!
Regards
Johan.

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Identification Help / Re: Sentimental about gift coin

« Last post by Jan P on Today at 07:47:35 am »

Hallo Johan V3?
I turned your coin in the good position to decipher the arabian (or persian) script.
At the moment my wife gave me a lot of tasks to do, but I 'll see this evening if I can find this coin.
Maybe some other member of this forum can help you quicker, ... the better .

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Identification Help / Re: Sentimental about gift coin

« Last post by Johan V3 on Today at 07:12:25 am »

Other side. I apologise if the images still are so fuzzy! Regards. Johan

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Identification Help / Re: Sentimental about gift coin

« Last post by Johan V3 on Today at 07:10:33 am »

One more effort to make the coin more discernable. Its diameter is 16 mm.

5

Identification Help / Re: Sentimental about gift coin

« Last post by Johan V3 on Today at 06:56:12 am »

Other side of coin

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Identification Help / Sentimental about gift coin

« Last post by Johan V3 on Today at 06:54:41 am »

Good day folks. I received this ancient coin, probably bronze, from a friend who purchased it in 1975 in Israel. He informed me then that he was told it came from Samaria. I will try to post the picture of the coin, front and back. The thing is, I cannot identify the coin but I dearly want to, as I have sentiment for the fact that the coin was a gift and my friend has passed. Please offer me assistance. I have searched coin images for hours on end and have come up with zilch. Regards. Johan 

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Identification Help / Re: Abbasid Caliphate Dirham Translation/Identification

« Last post by Tanit on Today at 04:27:31 am »

That's right they are the same.

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Seals and Tesserae / Re: Byzantine Lead Seal - Need Help with ID

« Last post by Gert on Today at 04:15:09 am »

St. Theodore on the obverse: Θ / ΘE/O-Δ/W/PO,

Reverse has an invocation, with the personal name on the last line:

KE ROH/[Θ]EI TW C, / ΔOVΛW / AΛ.

(Lord help your servant Al...)

Not many greek names starting with Al... so perhaps Alexander or, more common by this time, Alexios. The 3rd letter doesn't seem to be epsilon, so perhaps Al(e)x(io) or Al(e)x(andro)

Regards
Gert

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Seals and Tesserae / Re: Identification Help on Byzantine Lead Seal

« Last post by Gert on Today at 04:06:55 am »

Θ / Θ/Є-OΔO on the obverse. The first 'theta' is intended as ligature A inside O for 'ho hagios', 'Saint'. The name is of course St. Theodo(ros)

On the reverse I read:

+[Λ]EON
ACΠAΘP,
EΠI T (XP)Γ
KΛ, T(?)O CA
....AC

So Leon, protospatharios epi tou Chrysotriklinou. Which is followed, I think, by his family name Sa...as. Note that the court dignity is heavily abbreviated. Epi t(ou) Chr(yso)(tri)kl(inou). Chryso (gold) is abbreviated with XP, which shows that the "Christogram" even in Christian times does not always refer to Christ. Tri is given by gamma, which as a numeral stands for 3. The dignity, which is very common on seals, refers to the Golden Hall (Chrysotriklinos) in the imperial palace.

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Byzantine Coins / Re: Questions from a beginner

« Last post by Serendipity on Today at 02:36:43 am »

Byzantine gold coins are much more affordable than other ancient gold coins such as Roman gold aurei. In fact, Byzantine silver, generally, is significantly rarer than the gold, electrum, billon or copper coins of that empire. Byzantine gold coins are so packed with fascinating detail on account of the front-facing abstract iconography of the Byzantine period which greatly inspired the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso. They are the closest thing that I’ve seen to artwork on ancient coins. The only big mistake I made was when I purchased my first Byzantine gold coin, a Romanus III gold histamenon, at the start of the year. I realised with great regret that I could have bought the same gold coin more inexpensively and cheaply from the Forum. Actually, I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if the dealer selling the histamenon to me had themselves bought it from the Forum!