jahrbuch numismatik geldgeschichte - Bayerische Numismatische ...

16 J.Elayi, A.G.Elayitherefore designate the years this king ruled'9. It is likely that this system wasalso used for the previous abbreviations. On the other hand, this kind ofdating is well attested elsewhere in Phoenician inscriptions20. Moreover, twocoins from Tell Abu Hawam hoard21 support this hypothesis: a die used tomint shekels with 4T was reengraved with 6T, which seems to indicate adiscontinuous numbering according to a local era. Moreover, in the series includingfigures, the frequent absence of the first numbers confirms that thereis no continuous numbering.Because of the lack of documentation on the city of Tyre in this period,it is impossible to understand the meaning of all the abbreviations, but wecan understand which system was followed. The volume of Tyrian issuesprogressively increases as it can be seen by the increasing number of Tyriancoins in the hoards and the more and more regular dating: the Tyrian issueseven seem to become yearly at least from 350. We notice that, from the secondseries onwards, the coins are uninscribed only when there is no possibleconfusion between two successive issues. It would appear that there was apermanent preoccupation of differenciating each issue from the previousone, which became ever more necessary as the issues became morenumerous.The coins of the series of Phoenician standard, bearing the god on theseahorse could not be confused with the semi-incuse uninscribed coins of theprevious series because of iconographical and technical changes22: thus canbe explained their uninscribed character. But the following issues could beconfused with the previous one: consequently they bear the letters SR(?)23,M, MB and B24. We do not know whether these last letters already designatedthe initial of the kings' names or whether they were simply used in orderto distinguish the issues with an obscure meaning. If they already designatedthe initial of the kings' names, M and B would represent the two kings'issues, with the addition of Letter B (name of crown-prince?) on the second19 This series (up to 17) ends very likely in 333 (or some time before) because Alexander couldnot allow a rebellious city to continue the mint of her local coinage, symbol of herautonomy. Apart the proposal of E.T. Newell (The Dated Alexander Coinage of Sidon andAke, New Haven, 1916, p. 39 ss.) based only on stylistic grounds and generally admitted,there is no evident reason not to shift backwards (2 or 3 years) the beginning of the computof this series. This point will be developped in our book in preparation (cf. n. 2, above).20 KAI 14, 1. 1; J.C. Greenfield, „A Group of Phoenician City Seals", IEJ 35 (1985), pp.129-134 (the number may designate the regnal year following the abbreviation of theking's name).21 C. Lambert, „A Hoard of Phoenician Coins", QDAP 1 (1931), p. 15, n° 5, 8.22 Babelon, Perses, n° 1980, 1996.23 BN Paris, Coll. de Luynes, n° 3212; the lecture of the name of the city is uncertain.24 BMC Phoenicia, p. 229, n° 11, 13; Lambert, loc. cit., n° 13.