AR24 - Antoninus Pius L Δ

Year four of Antoninus Pius's reign — the regnal year indicated by the L Δ — fell squarely within one of the most administratively stable periods Roman Egypt had seen in generations. Antoninus never visited the province, governing it entirely through the prefect, yet Egyptian coinage continued its own closed currency system: billon tetradrachms were not accepted outside Egypt, and foreign silver could not circulate within it. The monetary isolation was deliberate, enforced since Augustus, and kept the Roman treasury extracting maximum value from the province's grain wealth.

Dattari 2896 is among the better-documented die references for this regnal year, with Milne's excavation records from Karanis providing the bulk of find context for the type.