By regnal year 11 (L ΙΑ), Diocletian's currency reform of 296 AD was already bearing down on the Alexandrian mint. The long-running series of billon tetradrachms — Egypt's idiosyncratic coinage, isolated from the Roman Imperial system for over two centuries — was about to be abolished entirely, folded into the standardized post-reform coinage. This piece comes from the penultimate phase of that tradition.
The Alexandrian mint had operated under a closed monetary system since Augustus, meaning these tetradrachms never circulated outside Egypt. Year 11 issues are well documented in Milne's corpus, though die alignment inconsistencies across the series suggest the mint was already operating under administrative disruption in the months before the reform took hold.
By regnal year 11 (L ΙΑ), Diocletian's currency reform of 296 AD was already bearing down on the Alexandrian mint. The long-running series of billon tetradrachms — Egypt's idiosyncratic coinage, isolated from the Roman Imperial system for over two centuries — was about to be abolished entirely, folded into the standardized post-reform coinage. This piece comes from the penultimate phase of that tradition.
The Alexandrian mint had operated under a closed monetary system since Augustus, meaning these tetradrachms never circulated outside Egypt. Year 11 issues are well documented in Milne's corpus, though die alignment inconsistencies across the series suggest the mint was already operating under administrative disruption in the months before the reform took hold.