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Tetradrachm
| Issuer | Minaean Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Year | 250 BC - 150 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Round (irregular) |
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| Obverse description | Highly stylized bust of Athena facing right, wearing a crested Attic helmet rendered in a schematic, provincial manner characteristic of South Arabian imitative coinage. The facial features are boldly but crudely engraved, with the helmet crest and cheekpieces clearly delineated despite the abstracted artistic treatment. The broad, flat flan displays the image in high relief against a plain field, reflecting the local workshop's interpretation of the Athenian prototype. No legend or inscription appears on the obverse. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
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| Reverse lettering | ƎΘΔ |
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| Additional information |
The Minaean Kingdom — centered on the ancient city of Qarnaw in what is now northern Yemen — was a mercantile power whose wealth derived almost entirely from controlling overland incense and spice routes connecting southern Arabia to the Mediterranean. These tetradrachms were almost certainly struck as trade instruments rather than civic coinage in any conventional sense, intended to function in commercial transactions with Ptolemaic Egypt and the wider Hellenistic world, which explains the Attic weight standard.
Huth 158 is among the more precisely catalogued Minaean types; the sequence established by Huth remains the primary reference framework for Arabian silver of this period.