RPC I, 4917A

 

 

Coin type
Volume I
Number 4917A
Province Judaea
Region Galilaea
City Tiberias
Reign Herod Antipas
Person (obv.) Herod Antipas (tetrarch)
Obverse inscription ΤΕΤΡΑ [ ] ΗΣ Δ
Obverse design corn ear
Reverse inscription ΗΡ Ω (?)
Reverse design palm tree
Metal copper-based alloy
Specimens 1 (0 in the core collections)
Note D. Hendin, ‘A new coin type of Herod Antipas’, INJ 15 (2006), pp. 56-61, has published this coin which he attributed to Sepphoris. Thus the name ‘Herod the tetrarch’ is a reasonable reconstruction, but the interpretation of Δ as year 4’ is much less sure, since it would be unusual to omit any sort of indication for ‘year’, such as the L which occurs on all other coins of Antipas. It was found in trade with coins said to have been found in the Jordan Valley. A natural interpretation of that phrase might suggest somewhere further south than Galilee (and anyway Sepphoris, to which it is attributed, is nowhere near the valley), and the coin does look worrying like the prutot normally attributed to Jerusalem, with which indeed it was associated. Hendin has subsequently suggested (in litt.) that the coin might even be attributable to Herod I.
Addition Additional coin-type (post publication)

Specimens of this coin type

Number Number Museum Bibliography
1 1     D. Hendin, ‘A new coin type of Herod Antipas’, INJ 15 (2006), pp. 56–61