AR23 - Trajan L Κ

Year 20 of Trajan's reign in Egypt (L K on the coin) corresponds to 116–117 AD, the final full regnal year before his death at Selinus in August 117. Alexandria's mint operated on a closed currency system — provincial tetradrachms could not legally circulate outside Egypt, and foreign silver could not enter without being melted and restruck. This monetary isolation kept the purity of Alexandrian issues in steady decline across the imperial period, though Trajanic tetradrachms still held relatively high silver content compared to what followed under later emperors.