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Æ33 - Hadrian L ΙΗ
| Issuer | Alexandria (Egypt) |
|---|---|
| Year | 133-134 |
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| Composition | Bronze |
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|---|---|
| Obverse script | Greek |
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| Reverse description | The goddess Isis Pharia, depicted as a full-length standing figure advancing to the right, rendered in long flowing robes with drapery billowing dramatically behind her. She holds a sistrum in her extended right hand and grasps a large billowing sail with her left, the sail arching prominently over her figure — a distinctive iconographic type associated with the patroness of Alexandrian seafarers. The regnal year legend L ΙΗ (Year 18) is inscribed in the lower field to either side of the figure, as is standard for Alexandrian drachms and bronze issues of the imperial period. |
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| Additional information |
Year 18 of Hadrian's reign coincided with his second extended stay in Egypt — he had visited Alexandria in 130 AD, and the Alexandrian mint responded to imperial attention with an unusually ambitious series of bronzes. The regnal year dating system used by Alexandria, expressed in Greek numerals on the reverse, is what fixes this piece to 133–134 with precision that Roman provincial issues rarely afford. Egypt's mint operated under direct imperial control as a closed currency system; coins struck here were not legal tender elsewhere in the empire, and foreign coinage had to be exchanged at the border.