AR20 - Diocletian L Α

Year L Α (regnal year 1) of Diocletian's reign in Egypt corresponds to 284–285 AD, placing this piece among the earliest Alexandrian tetradrachms struck under his rule. Diocletian would later prove transformative for Egypt specifically — his edict of 296–297 abolished the Alexandrian tetradrachm coinage entirely, replacing it with the empire-wide post-reform coinage system. This coin predates that rupture by over a decade, issued when the old Ptolemaic-rooted denominational tradition still functioned as Egypt's closed currency system.