Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1⁄32 Shekel - Abdashtart I
| Issuer | Sidon |
|---|---|
| Year | 365 BC - 352 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | A Persian king or royal hero in the kneeling-running pose (knielauf) facing right, clad in royal garments; he grasps an upright spear in his extended right hand and holds a strung bow in his left. The entire device is set within a recessed incuse square, a hallmark of early Phoenician silver coinage, with the field left otherwise plain. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Sidon |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Abdashtart I — known in Greek sources as Straton I — ruled Sidon during a period of considerable Phoenician autonomy under loose Achaemenid suzerainty, and his coinage reflects a city wealthy enough from its role in Persian naval provisioning to sustain a denomination this small in silver. At 0.35 g, the thirty-second shekel functioned at the absolute lower boundary of practical silver coinage, likely used in port transactions where fractional payment for goods or labor demanded exactly this kind of tiny denomination.
Betlyon's corpus remains the foundational reference for Sidonian civic coinage of this period, and the Sunrise collection specimen underpins most auction comparanda.