Æ Half Unit - Massinissa or Micipsa Siga, with filleted palm frond

Siga, located near modern Aïn Témouchent in northwestern Algeria, served as the royal seat of the Masaesyli — the western Numidian kingdom ruled by Syphax before his defeat by Scipio Africanus and Masinissa in 203 BC. The city passed into the orbit of the unified Numidian kingdom, and coinage struck there reflects a minting tradition already established under Syphax rather than a clean dynastic break.

The attribution to either Masinissa or his son Micipsa remains unresolved precisely because the dynasty issued bronze without regnal identifiers, leaving scholars to work from hoard evidence and typological sequence. The eighty-five year span of this attribution is not uncertainty — it is the honest position.