Provincial Question

[Molinari]

I'm looking at one of Joe's coins and in the description it says the   stands for 16.  What does that number refer to and is it definitely a number?  In Greek can mean either strength or sinew, and note that here Nile holds a cornucopia, a symbol of Acheloios (the rivers of the world were his sinews).

[Joe Sermarini]

The description identifies the meaning.  Sixteen cubits was the ideal height of the Nile flood.

[shanxi]

It's interesting that you find the IϚ on many coins with Nilus like:

https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/4/14284



but not on the coins from the year 16, when 16 means the year,  like:

https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/4/13765

[JBF]

One numbering system for the Greeks was Milesian notation, using their alphabet, plus three archaic letters, starting with alpha for the number one.  This is pseudo decimal system, running from 1 to 9, then 10 to 90, then 100 to 900 and then repeating with a little single quote mark to show that your dealing with 1000s and beyond.  The first archaic letter to be used is "6", the vau or digamma, the "F" above   is a digamma, as is the weird snaky 'S'    Iota is the letter for "10".

A vau (or digamma) is a 'w' sound as in Wanax, the ethnic of Elis, uses a vau.

There are also acrophontic numerals, but that is another story.

[Molinari]

The description identifies the meaning.  Sixteen cubits was the ideal height of the Nile flood.

I overlooked the italicized texts!

[JBF]

I would like to know where the ideal height for the Nile is during flooding, is found.  Not that I doubt that there is probably an ancient source for that fact.

[rennrad12020]

The father of lies; Herodotus II.13. 

JPW

[Molinari]

I found this informative:

https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-94-007-3934-5_9644-2