A Coin from Pre-Punic War Carthage

NiceCurrency

First of all a great thank you to Dennis H. for letting me purchase this coin from him

While there is considerable corrosion present, it appears stable and the coin itself is quite above average, generally you aren't going to see the portrait with this fine of detail, especially on a bronze piece.

This piece was minted by the Carthaginians either at Carthage or an unknown mint in Sardinia (one of the islands off the west coast of Italy) some time between 300 and 264BC. The obverse shows the Carthaginian goddess Tanit wearing a wreath of grain ears, triple pendant earring and necklace. On the reverse, a simple horse head.


Carthage (meaning "new city") has a founding myth much like its sometimes friend, most of the time foe Rome...

Supposedly in 814BC Queen Dido (or Elissar/Elissa) fled Tyre to found a new place to live, the place she selected is on the northern coast of Africa in a suburb of today's Tunis in Tunisia.

Tying into the design on the reverse of this coin, it is said when they started to dig where they intended to create the city, they initially found an ox head which was thought to be an omen that the city would be wealthy but laborious and always enslaved, instead they picked a nearby area that yielded a horse head which they believed meant they would be a powerful and warlike people.

Over hundreds of years the people of Carthage clashed with the Greeks as well as the Romans several times, the most well known being the "Punic Wars." (the word Punic comes from the Latin 'Punicus' for Phoenician, as they were Phoenicians in origin)

As the First Punic War began in 264BC, this coin was minted before getting into those turbulent times.


Tanit was the chief deity of Carthage, she was the sky goddess ruling over the cosmos as well as the mother goddess. The palm tree is attributed to her, explaining why we see it on later issue coinage, it being the desert version of the Tree of Life.
Interestingly despite nonsense claims that Rome hated Carthage so much that after their utter destruction after the Third Punic War the very earth the city stood on was salted, the Romans brought a version of Tanit into their immense pantheon as Dea Caelestis (goddess of Heaven)


*edit Thank you Andres for letting me know I forgot to put the size and weight, my bad, it's about 22mm and 4.88g
*edit and I confused west with east, thanks

LochNESS

Cool history lesson. A couple thoughts ...

- You say Carthage was located in a suburb of today's Tunis. I don't believe this is a coincidence... You say the Carthaginians were originally Phoenicians. The Phoenician alphabet was taken from the Hebrew aleph-bet. In the aleph-bet, the final letter "T" is sometimes pronounced "S" depending on region dialect (today the separation is between Eastern Europe, and Western Europe & North Africa! hmm...) Anyway my point is "Tanit" (their main goddess) probably became "Tunis." So the city Tunis likely got its name from the Carthage goddess, Tanit. If we could go back in time and ask them, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the goddess' name was in fact "Tunis" and we've been saying it wrong

- Caelum is Latin (i.o., Roman) for "heaven" if anyone is wondering where the name Caelestis came from

Zohar

Thats a very nice coin, like the reverse in particular.

NiceCurrency

<< <i>Cool history lesson. A couple thoughts ...

- You say Carthage was located in a suburb of today's Tunis. I don't believe this is a coincidence... You say the Carthaginians were originally Phoenicians. The Phoenician alphabet was taken from the Hebrew aleph-bet. In the aleph-bet, the final letter "T" is sometimes pronounced "S" depending on region dialect (today the separation is between Eastern Europe, and Western Europe & North Africa! hmm...) Anyway my point is "Tanit" (their main goddess) probably became "Tunis." So the city Tunis likely got its name from the Carthage goddess, Tanit. If we could go back in time and ask them, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the goddess' name was in fact "Tunis" and we've been saying it wrong

- Caelum is Latin (i.o., Roman) for "heaven" if anyone is wondering where the name Caelestis came from >>






only part is, and I'm not looking to start a holy war here but many sources suggest the Phoenicians put together the first alphabet, derived from Egyptian, and Hebrew and Greek are derived from Phoenician

Andres

I like it very much , robust , heavy ? coin , congrats. diameter & weight ?

NiceCurrency

whoops, that's what I get for creating a post at midnight

I know it's about 22mm, will add a weight later tonight when I can get at the coin

Hussulo

Nice coin and great write up. I have read about Carthage before bug learnt a couple of new things reading your post tonight.

Swampboy

Just a fantastic ancient bronze coin with two great portraits.
I really like the war horse reverse.

lordmarcovan

Nice design. I've ogled those in some of my VCoins searches.

Aethelred

Nice coin, I owned a lower grade example many years ago an these always stir thoughts of "what if" in my mind. What would the world look like today IF Carthage hadwon the Punic Wars? I believe it would be a vastly different place.

Andres

You would probably do this, 5 times a day

LochNESS

<< <i>... and I'm not looking to start a holy war here but many sources suggest the Phoenicians put together the first alphabet, derived from Egyptian, and Hebrew and Greek are derived from Phoenician >>

I am aware of this sad slant, which is why I make a point to mention this whenever the topic arises. Many people are not aware that the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt for many, many years. The Egyptians, along with other peoples, "borrowed" many things from us. What is important is to remember that the Hebrews brought their scrolls (and aleph-bet) with them into Egypt. Pre-dating the Egyptian rule over the Phoenicians. Also, the P's did much trading in the land of Canaan, in which the Hebrews spent quite some time traveling and trading. So it's not a stretch to imagine them coming across some Hebrew scrolls and adapting the aleph-bet for their own purposes.

It might seem silly, but the fact is that many nations including the [ancient] Egyptians and the [ancient] Greeks attempted to wipe out the Hebrews by erasing any trace of their existence. This was partly to be accomplished by claiming Hebrew treasures as their own.

Consider this: there are numerous Hebrew texts, yet there are no Phoenician texts, yet the Phoenician culture survived about 800 years AFTER the reign of King Solomon ... for a nation who supposedly invented the aleph-bet, they didn't do much writing!

The Greeks translated many texts from Hebrew into Greek, including the 5 books of Moses (which was later re-translated, quite liberally, into English for the King James bible). The dead sea scrolls are in Hebrew, Greek, and two other languages ... neither of which is Phoenician.

Just food for thought. No holy wars raging here. Just the desire to relay a perspective of history that isn't Europe-bias