International Numismata Orientalia Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874 edition. Excerpt: ...the Phoenician trade with the interior, and shows that the Phoenician system of weights and money extended from the Tigris and the Euphrates to the sea. It will be seen from the description which follows how much these pieces have in common with the recognized money of Phoenicia both in type and fabric. Indeed, were it not that the forms of some of the letters upon a few of the inscribed specimens seem to be of an Aramaic rather than a purely Phoenician character, all the evidence would be in favour of the coins which follow being Perse-Phoenician rather than Perso-Syrian. These four coins are remarkable as furnishing us with a representation of a war-galley under sail, a type which points clearly to Phoenicia, for on the Tigris and Euphrates ships of this description with sails were never used. The reverse types, on the other hand, are clearly Persian, and the union of the two seems to indicate that this class of coins was issued for the convenience of the traders between the interior and the coast. The place of mintage may therefore have been Tyre, whose close commercial relations with Syria and with the interior of Asia generally are well known, cf. Ezekiel, xxvii., who, in his picture of the glory of Tyre, says, "Syria was thy dealer from the multitude of thy fabrics: with jewels and purple and embroidery and cotton and corals and rubies they furnished thy markets Damascus was thy dealer in the multitude of thy fabrics from the abundance of all riches, in the wine of Helbon (Xavfl(ov, Aleppo) and white wool." The obverse type of these coins would seem, as is not unfrequently the case in the archaic period, to be the one which indicates the place of issue. The Persian reverse in the present instance is perhaps only intended...