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| Archeology All aspects of archeology, including moral, ethical, and legal considerations. |
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Aug 12, 2010, 06:01 AM
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#1 |
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Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Dayton, Ohio
Posts: 154
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Rare 2,200-year-old gold coin found in Israel
I just saw that today on the news. A team of University of Michigan and University of Minnesota archeologists found a 27.7 (!!!) gram gold coin in Israel. Amazing.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/...ex.html?hpt=C2 The obverse, or 'head' of the coin, portrays Queen Arsinoe II Philadelphus. Picture from cnn.com |
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Aug 12, 2010, 07:08 AM
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#2 |
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Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Piedmont of North Carolina
Posts: 1,721
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I don't collect Ptolemaic coins (unless minted in Cyrene), so I'm not up on the latest and greatest on gold from the period. But, unless coins from this ruler of this size are particularly rare, I'm underwhelmed by the news. I've seen better condition large sized Ptolemaic gold in just about all of the catalog sales.
On a related note, why is it that we're getting all of this coin-related news flashes from finds in Israel? Are they not finding anything else there that is news worthy from an archeological stand-point? I don't get it. J |
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Aug 12, 2010, 12:57 PM
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#3 |
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Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Dayton, Ohio
Posts: 154
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The news is huge, first of all, for Israel itself ("the coin ranked in the top five of the rarest finds in that country's history", "the heaviest gold coin with the highest contemporary value of any coin ever found in an excavation in Israel", "It is only the second gold Ptolemaic coin ever found in Israel."). And besides, not every day archeologists find one ounce ancient gold coins.
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Aug 12, 2010, 01:04 PM
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#4 |
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Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Piedmont of North Carolina
Posts: 1,721
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O.K., it's just that this is the 3 or 4th coin-related Israel story we've seen in about 1 year. The paranoid in me sees the increased media attention of coin-related finds as potentially hurtful to the collector community's efforts to keep coins out of the cultural transfer prohibitions.
J |
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Aug 12, 2010, 02:18 PM
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#5 | |
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Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Dayton, Ohio
Posts: 154
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Quote:
And finds this Year of Israel in archeology and numismatics rather odd too. |
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Aug 12, 2010, 02:29 PM
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#6 |
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Registered User
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Connecticut
Posts: 1,362
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I have had to explain to more than a few people that the coin is only worth a few thousand dollars. They all thought that the coin must be priceless.
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