Æ34 - Trajan L ΙϚ

Year 16 of Trajan's reign saw Alexandria's mint operating under the Egyptian regnal dating system — a bureaucratic holdover from Ptolemaic practice that Rome never bothered to abolish. This is a large-module bronze, and the Alexandrian mint was producing these at a moment when Trajan was deep in preparations for the Parthian campaign that would begin in 114 AD, diverting administrative and financial attention eastward. Provincial Egyptian coinage continued largely on its own inertia during this period, supervised by the prefect rather than any central Roman monetary authority.