A MIXED GROUP OF GREEK AND ROMAN AND ISLAMIC BRONZE COINS. CIRCA: 4TH CENTURY B.C.- 18TH CENTURY A.D

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A MIXED GROUP OF GREEK, ROMAN AND ISLAMIC BRONZE COINS, CIRCA 4TH CENTURY B.C. – 18TH CENTURY A.D. Comprising approximately thirty coins of varied module, fabric and date, assembled as a study group spanning some two millennia of Mediterranean and Near Eastern coinage. The group is predominantly of copper alloy, with one small silver issue and one gilt piece of pendant form pierced for suspension. Diameters range from small square-flan Islamic issues of roughly one centimetre to a large Roman provincial or sestertius-scale bronze of approximately four centimetres. Among the Greek and Hellenistic issues, one coin bears a laureate male head in high relief, in the tradition of Ptolemaic or Seleucid royal portraiture, and a further piece preserves a striding figure of Zeus or a related deity. A small silver fraction shows a winged Nike or Athena advancing. Several Roman issues are identifiable by their obverse portraits and Latin legends, including a laureate imperial bust with the partial legend suggesting a second- or third-century emperor, a radiate portrait of a later third- or early fourth-century ruler, and reverses showing standing personifications of Virtus, Libertas or Fortuna, a seated female figure holding attributes, and an eagle with spread wings on a large brass module in the manner of a provincial issue of Alexandria or the eastern mints. The Islamic component comprises small square and round flans struck in naskhi and kufic scripts, one dated coin reading 1285 (AH), consistent with late Ottoman, Mughal or successor issues of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The group is completed by a European token or trade piece inscribed within a heraldic shield and dated 1791, and a small gilt pendant disc struck with a bust and legend, pierced at the edge for wear. Coins of this range were the everyday instruments of exchange across successive empires that controlled the same trade corridors, from the Hellenistic kingdoms established after Alexander, through the Roman and Byzantine administrations, to the Umayyad, Abbasid, Seljuk, Mamluk, Ottoman and Mughal states that inherited and adapted the earlier monetary traditions. The persistence of certain conventions across this span, the ruler's portrait, the divine or emblematic reverse, the marginal legend recording titles and mint, is itself the subject of a study collection such as this. The presence of an eighteenth-century European provincial token alongside classical and Islamic bronzes reflects the eclectic character of grand-tour and cabinet assemblages formed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when antiquities and modern curiosities were often gathered together. The material of the group is largely base copper alloy, the standard fabric for the small change of both the classical and Islamic worlds, and the medium in which the widest social range of users encountered the images and inscriptions of the state. Bronze coinage carried imperial and religious ideology into daily transactions in a way that gold and silver, hoarded and reserved for larger settlements, did not. The surfaces here retain earthen and green cupreous patinas consistent with long burial, with legends and devices partly obscured by encrustation. This group exemplifies the type of comparative study lot formed by a private collector across several fields of numismatics, valuable less for the rarity of any single piece than for the sweep of striking traditions it places side by side. Groups of this character remain a standard entry point for collectors of ancient and Islamic coinage and continue to serve as teaching material for the comparative study of portraiture, legend and reverse iconography across cultures. Dimensions: Diameter of largest 4 cm. Total weight 369 g.

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