ARABIA, Eastern. Gerrha/Thaj (?). Imitations of the series with the name of Shams and the coinage in the name of Antiochos III, circa 1st century BCE to 1st century CE. Tetradrachm (Silver, 26 mm, 15.93 g, 12 h). Stylized head of Herakles to right, wearing lion skin headdress. Rev. IIM-WW Apollo seated left on omphalos, holding arrow in his right hand and resting his left on grounded bow; below Apollo's arm, X. CCK 139 (this coin). Unique and highly unusual. Somewhat porous and with some doubling on the reverse, otherwise, nearly very fine.


Like lot 2231 above, this unique coin combines the two main Gerrhaean coin types into one, but this time Alexander's Herakles forms the obverse, whereas we find the Seleukid Apollo on the reverse. The Arabian artist was still aware of Greek coin legends, with the X below Apollo's right hand perhaps being a distant recollection of the spelling of Antiochos' name on his coins in Greek (BAΣIΛEΩΣ ANTIOXOY). Stylistically, the coin is clearly quite late and likely dates no earlier than the 1st century BCE, showing some similarities to the later coinage in the name of Abi'el (see lots 2237-2243 below).