Lot 1241
Caracalla. Silver Tetradrachm (11.94 g), AD 198-217. Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), AD 215-217. AVT KAI ANTW-NINOC CEB, laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Caracalla right. Rev. ΔHMAPΧ E- Ξ VΠATO C TΔ, eagle standing facing on thyrsos without fillets, head and tail left, holding wreath in beak; between legs, vine leaf. (cf. Meshorer 95 (filleted thrsos); cf. Prieur 1617 (same)). Rare and unrecorded in the standard references without the fillet on the thyrsos. Choice very fine. Estimate $1,500UP
Ex CNG 99 (13 May 2015), lot 504.
Part of a much larger series of Syrian tetradrachms intended primarily to fund Caracalla's disastrous Parthian campaign (AD 216-217), this issue of Aelia Capitolina is notable for its potentially crypto-Jewish mintmark. Although Aelia Capitolina was refounded on the ruins of Jerusalem by Hadrian in an attempt to defile and blot out the holy city of the Jews in ca. AD 132, the thyrsos symbol on this coin may refer to the original deity worshipped in Jerusalem before the city was destroyed and paganized, since the Jewish God was frequently identified by Greeks with Dionysos going back at least to the second century BC. Thus it would seem that even as a pagan center, Aelia Capitolina still retained some memory of its Jewish past.
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