NEWP: Kings of Mauretania, Juba II. Denarius

Zohar

Its been a few months since I had added to my ancient collection. I passed on this one at the NYINC given other priorities. I had not seen this type prior and what made it a compelling buy was the Capricorn on the reverse.



KINGS of MAURETANIA. Juba II, 25 BC - AD 23/24. AR Denarius, 19mm, 2.81gr, dated RY 42 (AD 17-18), Caesarea mint. Obv. REX IVBA, head of Hercules right, within dotted border. Rev. Capricorn right date below, all within dotted border. Mazard 211; SNG Copenhagen 587. A stunningly beautiful coin with a multicolored iridescence of opalescent lilac and aquamarine. NGC MS* 5/5, 5/5.

bronzemat

Hot coin, Z. I don't have a capricorn reverse either.

JCMhouston

That's very nice Z!

STLNATS

Lovely coin. Congrats,

EVillageProwler

Who was it that first said "a picture is worth a thousand words"?

CCC2010

Simply Beautiful!

bidask

Beautiful coin !

What's the history of Mauretania?

Zohar

What's the history of Mauretania?

Was part the Berber Kingdoms in North Africa during ancient times (Now Morocco) as was Kingdom of Numidia (Now Libya). Juba I/II were the rulers.



Here is Juba I of Numidia - LINK

marcmoish

...just a really darn nice piece again Z!

lordmarcovan

All I can say is WOW.







As you may have heard, I'm rather fond of capricorn coinage myself.



That's my "sign".



What an amazing piece, Z.



PS- I notice the capricorns on ancient coins are often portrayed with a globe. And the globes (at least in the case of your coin here and the Roman denarius I linked to) have some kind of crosshatching on them... almost like longitude and latitude lines!? But surely that wouldn't have been the case, so long ago? I'd be interested to hear if anyone can say more about this.

7Jaguars

Wasn't he the king that Cleopatra's daughter (?Cleopatra also - Selene??) married off to by Augustus? Might have that wrong though.

Zohar

Hydrant - thank you for the kind words. I don't know much about them as well, just try to pick nice specimens which speak to me as I run across them.

asheland

Great coin, Zohar!

Zohar

Yeah, right.

I really don't know much about their history or context. I buy what appeals to me (I conducts some price discovery) and then read up a bit on history.