Poseidon Alexandria tet? ID help please

[archivum]

The fabric of this coin certainly looks like an Alexandria tet (12.44 g, 26 mm), A. Pius ? laur. hd. r., Poseidon stg. l. foot on prow holding cornucopiae and dolphin, but I just can't account for the odd reverse legend, something like EOI - SI (not in online resources including RPC; I do not have access to Dattari or Milne); what do all of you think?  Thanks for any / all help!

[iwaniw]

Archivum:

I don't think this is an Alexandrian issue even though Pius did issue a tetradrachm with a similar reverse in year 5. The style of your Poseidon does not match the Alexandrian one. I would be looking at the "O" to see if it was a theta date, and it does not look that way to me. The backward "S" might simply be a dolphin, but if that is the case, what is Poseidon holding in his right hand ?

The only inscription, other than a date, that would make sense is "POSEIDWN", but even that would be a long shot as the backward "S" on the coin would not resemble the actual Greek letter.

Iwaniw

[bpmurphy]

PHOENICIA, Berytos. Antoninus Pius.

Looks like it reads COL B[ER] across the field.

Barry Murphy

[archivum]

Thanks for both these responses; the first letter seems to be  , and I think that the fourth is indeed closer to reverse S than it is to a B.   Definitely an odd issue.

[bpmurphy]

I'm 99.9% certain it's Berytos.

This is from CNG 41.

Barry

[Steve Minnoch]

http://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/6754/?search&stype=ident&c=berytus&od=&rd=&rd_b=or&ri=&m=&d=&ri_ns=&od_b=or&od_ft=&rd_ft=&rno=1

Steve

[archivum]

Thank you both; even with the skewed lettering on my coin, it's clear you're both right, and there's even a die-match with Barry's example to quell any lingering doubts.  I have never seen a non-Alexandrian coin that looks so much like something from Egypt; a neat little lesson.  Best wishes,

archivum