Classical Numismatic Group, LLC
Triton XXV 11-12 Jan 2022
View prices realized
► Sale information
Find similar lots
EGYPT, Alexandria. Antoninus Pius. AD 138-161. Æ Drachm (34mm, 22.15 g, 12h). Zodiac series. Dated RY 8 (AD 144/145). AVT K T AIΛ A∆P ANTωNЄINOC ЄB (sic) ЄVC, laureate head right / Jupiter in Pisces – Bust right of Zeus (Jupiter), wearing taenia and draped on left shoulder, transverse scepter across right shoulder; star of eight rays before; fish right and fish left below; L-H (date) to either side. Köln –; Dattari (Savio) 2981; K&G 35.260; RPC IV.4 Online 13555/33 (this coin cited and illustrated); Emmett 1692.8. Green patina with traces of red, light roughness. Near VF. Rare, one of the better types in the Alexandrian Zodiac series.
Ex Stein A. Evensen Collection; Boston Museum of Fine Arts Collection (Gemini VI, 10 January 2010), lot 827, gift of Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius C. Vermeule, 1985.
The Great Sothic Cycle was a calendrical cycle based on the heliacal rising in July of the star Sirius (known to the Greeks as Sothis) and lasting approximately 1460 years. According to ancient Egyptian mythology, in a Golden Age, the beginning of the flooding of the Nile coincided exactly with the rising of Sirius, which was reckoned as the New Year. Only once every 1460 years did Sirius rise at exactly the same time. Thus, the coincidence of this along with the concurrent beginning of the flooding of the Nile gave the event major cosmological significance by heralding not just the beginning of a new year, but the beginning of a new eon. This event also was thought to herald the appearance of the phoenix, a mythological bird which was reborn every 500 to 1000 years out of its own ashes. According to one version of the myth, each new phoenix embalmed its old ashes in an egg of myrrh, which it then deposited in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis. So important was the advent of the new Great Sothic Cycle, both to the realignment of the heavens and its signaling of the annual flooding of the Nile, that the Egyptians celebrated it in a five-day festival, which emphasized the important cosmological significance.
In the third year of the reign of Antoninus Pius (AD 139/40), a new Great Sothic Cycle began. To mark this event, the mint of Alexandria struck an extensive series of coinage, especially in large bronze drachms, each related in some astrological way to the reordering of the heavens during the advent of the new Great Sothic Cycle. This celebration would continue throughout Pius' reign, with an immense output of coinage during the eighth year of his reign in Egypt, which included this coin type, part of the Zodiac series.
Ex Stein A. Evensen Collection; Boston Museum of Fine Arts Collection (Gemini VI, 10 January 2010), lot 827, gift of Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius C. Vermeule, 1985.
The Great Sothic Cycle was a calendrical cycle based on the heliacal rising in July of the star Sirius (known to the Greeks as Sothis) and lasting approximately 1460 years. According to ancient Egyptian mythology, in a Golden Age, the beginning of the flooding of the Nile coincided exactly with the rising of Sirius, which was reckoned as the New Year. Only once every 1460 years did Sirius rise at exactly the same time. Thus, the coincidence of this along with the concurrent beginning of the flooding of the Nile gave the event major cosmological significance by heralding not just the beginning of a new year, but the beginning of a new eon. This event also was thought to herald the appearance of the phoenix, a mythological bird which was reborn every 500 to 1000 years out of its own ashes. According to one version of the myth, each new phoenix embalmed its old ashes in an egg of myrrh, which it then deposited in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis. So important was the advent of the new Great Sothic Cycle, both to the realignment of the heavens and its signaling of the annual flooding of the Nile, that the Egyptians celebrated it in a five-day festival, which emphasized the important cosmological significance.
In the third year of the reign of Antoninus Pius (AD 139/40), a new Great Sothic Cycle began. To mark this event, the mint of Alexandria struck an extensive series of coinage, especially in large bronze drachms, each related in some astrological way to the reordering of the heavens during the advent of the new Great Sothic Cycle. This celebration would continue throughout Pius' reign, with an immense output of coinage during the eighth year of his reign in Egypt, which included this coin type, part of the Zodiac series.