Philosophical transactions, Vol. L. Part II. For the year 1758. / Giving some account of the present undertakings, studies, and labours, of the ingenious, in many considerable parts of the world.

by Various; Royal Society

III.

Three coins of Sidon, different from the former, occur in[171] Sig. Haym, and seven[172] more in my little cabinet, whose type is altogether the same, with Phœnician dates, preceded by the two aforesaid initial letters, upon them. To which we may add five, preserved in the noble[173] cabinet bequeathed to Christ-Church, Oxon. by Archbishop Wake, and another in the valuable collection of the Rev. Dr. Barton[174], Canon of the said collegiate church, and a worthy member of this Society. On one side these medals all exhibit the head of Jupiter, and on the reverse the prow of a ship, the common symbol of Sidon. Most of them had various Phœnician letters at first imprest on the upper part of the reverse, and one of them (which is pretty remarkable) nearly the same characters there that appear in the exergue. The first of the coins mentioned here was struck in the year of Sidon 5. This has been perfectly well preserved, and is more curious than any of the rest; which were emitted from the mint at Sidon in various years of the proper æra of that city, viz. the 107th, 108th, 110th, 111th, 112th, 114th, 115th, 116th, 117th, and 119th. We meet on none of these medals with the figure denoting TWENTY, used by the Sidonians, during the period I am now upon. It not a little resembles that which prevailed at Tadmor[175] in the reign of the emperor Claudius, about forty-nine years after the birth of Christ. The most antient of the Phœnician coins I am now considering preceded the commencement of the Christian æra 104 years, and is consequently 153 years older than the earliest Palmyrene inscription that has hitherto come to our hands[176].