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!
Æ34 - Hadrian L Β
| Issuer | Alexandria (Egypt) |
|---|---|
| Year | 117-118 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| 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 | Hammered |
| 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 | Emperor Hadrian, laureate and wearing a toga, standing upright in a quadriga drawn by four elephants advancing to the right. He holds an eagle-tipped sceptre in his left hand and a branch in his right. The elephants are rendered in the characteristic Alexandrian provincial style. The regnal year date appears in the field, marking this issue to the second year of Hadrian's reign. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | ND (117-118) |
| Additional information |
Hadrian's first regnal year in Alexandria — Λ Β, Year 2 by Egyptian reckoning — falls immediately after his accession following Trajan's death in August 117. The Alexandria mint moved quickly to produce coinage in his name, though the political situation was anything but settled: Hadrian had just suppressed the tail end of the great Jewish revolt that had devastated Cyprus, Cyrene, and Egypt itself under Trajan. The Egyptian economy was still absorbing that damage when these bronzes entered circulation.
The mint at Alexandria operated on a closed currency system, meaning provincials had to exchange Roman coinage for local issues at the border — a deliberate monetary quarantine that kept Alexandrian bronzes circulating hard within Egypt rather than bleeding out to wider trade networks.