Catalog
Decadrachm - Berenike II Alexandria
| Issuer | Ptolemaic Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Year | 246 BC - 222 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | 34 mm |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A large, elaborately decorated cornucopiae depicted upright at center, its mouth overflowing with a wheat ear, a pyramidal cake, and a pomegranate, emblematic of royal abundance and fertility; a cluster of grapes hangs from the left side of the horn's rim. The horn itself is bound with a royal diadem, its two fillets falling straight downward on either side, signifying divine queenship. The entire composition is enclosed within a dotted border, with the Greek royal legend distributed in two parts across the field. |
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| Mint | Alexandria |
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| Additional information |
Berenike II came to the Ptolemaic throne through Cyrene, where she had ruled independently before her marriage to Ptolemy III Euergetes in 246 BC. The decadrachm series honoring her was almost certainly struck to commemorate her deification — a political act that served dynastic interests as much as religious ones, folding her cult into the broader Ptolemaic apparatus of divine kingship that the dynasty had been carefully constructing since Ptolemy I.
Fewer than a handful of specimens are recorded across the major reference collections, with the Lockett and Jameson pieces among the most cited. The sheer weight of gold involved made these coins statements of treasury capacity rather than instruments of everyday exchange.