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Obol - Ptolemy III Euergetes Alexandria

Issuer Ptolemaic Kingdom
Year 246 BC - 222 BC
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Value Obol (⅙)
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Obverse script Greek
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Reverse script Greek
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Additional information

Ptolemy III's reign opened with the Third Syrian War, during which Egyptian forces pushed deep into the Seleucid heartland — by some ancient accounts reaching as far as Bactria, though this is almost certainly exaggerated. The campaign was expensive, and the Ptolemaic bronze coinage of this period functioned as a closed currency system: foreign silver was exchanged at the border, bronze circulated internally, and the crown captured the spread. Small denominations like this obol were the workhorse of that system in Alexandria's markets.

Svoronos 967 is among the better-documented attributions for this type, though the Copenhagen numbers occasionally reflect disagreement over whether certain die pairings constitute distinct issues or simply production variation within a single emission.