...Yep, the truth is that both spellings are used, in English, by academics. Since they're transliterations anyway, it's like, whatever feels good.... A lot of people think it's bad luck to post coins before they actually arrive. But I'm a trusting soul. Just landed these at auction, after having been bulldozed during the recent Roma auction, featuring a lot of amazing stuff from the Vaccaro collection. (...Pioneering numismatist in this stuff; largely, correspondingly discredited. For provenance, it was kind of, Meh. ...Cf. (appropriately enough) Aesop, the fox and the grapes: '...I'm sure they were sour, anyway.') Anon. AE, c. late 4th c. BACI/\EVC (yep, Greek); TOYTOAPECHTHXWPA ('May this please the country'). The cross is different from most of these in being Latin rather than Greek, and hollowed in the middle, like a contemporaneous AR issue, but without gold inlay. Munro-Hay 51 (cf. 50; the AR prototype). I have a comparable one to this with the more common (solid) Greek cross --but, Rats, no pictures! Had to do something to console myself for being massively outbid in the Roma auction. ...The next one, instead of merely a complement, is a substantive upgrade of the example I had (...and went for Much less). Hataz, c. 570. AE unit. Facing portrait, imitating Byzantine AE. Ge'ez legend: King Hataz. Rev.: Cross in central lozenge; crosslets radiating from the angles. Ge'ez: Mercy to the people. ...Munro-Hay's chronology (p. 75) notes that the period coincides with the Sasanian Persian conquest of Yemen, the western part of which had invaded by the Aksumite king Kaleb in c. 525, in diplomatic collusion with Justinian I. This ...and the intervening 'Plague of Justinian' (discussed here not long ago; cf. this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rc43 ), might help to acount for the modulation in the reverse legend. ...The level of candor, from a royal government, is refreshing. Compare that to the example I already had (and have posted, Yes, recently --on a terrific thread about Justinian), where you get everything except the face. ...Anyone got some Aksumite (Sure, /Axumite) love?
Kings of Axum Anonymous AD 400-500 AE 14 O: BAC + ACA, Crowned bust right, holding cross-tipped scepter R: +TOV TO APECH TH XWPA, Greek Cross; central punch-hole inlaid in gold, Inscription "May this (cross) please the country." Munro-Hay 76, BMC Aksumite 316 0.75g One of the most curious aspects of Axumite coinage is the use of gilding on some of the silver and bronze coins. The amount of gold used would not be enough to significantly change the value of the coin, and the reason for this labor-intensive process remains somewhat a mystery. It is usually found highlighting the portrait of the king or as embellishment of the cross, so it may serve the same purpose as gold tesserae in church mosaics and gold leaf on manuscripts--to reflect the Divine Light shining on the monarch and the church.
Both are nice, but the first one is terrific. My only (small) link to Aksumite coinage is the two books I've inherited from a friend after his passing : Stuart Munro-Hay "Aksumite coinage", and "catalogue of the Aksumite coins in the BM" Q
@Cucumbor and @+VGO.DVCKS, I wonder if the book is online, like almost all of the old British Museum catalogues. Edited to add: probably not, since it's not "old" - - Munro-Hay, S. Catalogue of the Aksumite Coins in the British Museum. (London, 1999).
Sadly, @DonnaML, that's the perennial problem with stuff on Aksumite, or that much of anything medieval ...or off the beaten path for late antiquity. The research is effectively ongoing, and you really need the more recent stuff.
A solid example of an iconic issue, @Mat. Your observations about the significance of the gilt are interesting in evoking vaguely similar, but related Byzantine sensibilities. (Edit: ) Well, okay, here's mine, posted in the last year. Promise you, this one was a serious outlay. I wanted one as near to the reign of Kaleb, who invaded Yemen, as I could get. But he only issued gold in his own name. Then I sprang for this one (posted during the same interval), still vaguely based on the Roman/Byzantine standard, approximating a tremissis. I like how the legends continue in declining Koine Greek, except for Kaleb's monogram (two letters at the top of the obverse), which is already in Ge'ez.
Wow, @panzerman, as the computer in the first few seasons of "Red Dwarf" (sort of a benign, slightly dementia-prone version of HAL in "2001") might say, "Kicking Bottom, or What?" Somewhere, I posted the AR I finally landed of Ezanas, also pre-Christian, and a gilt AR of Aphilas. ...Oh, Heck. Ezana first; much better Greek than the later ones. (HZA [...] NAC, followed by BACI/\EYC.) And my gilt AR of Aphilas, a little earlier, c. late 3rd c. CE. I like how the dual portraits have obvious Himyarite (Yemenese) prototypes (--rats, no pics).
Did you win any of the Axum material from last Roma Auction? I tried but got clobbered/ prices where insane.
