AMMANITIS, Tobiads. Hyrkanos, circa 200-169 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 25 mm, 14.11 g, 11 h), in the name of Ptolemy III (246-222 BC). Uncertain mint in Ammanitis, imitating Ake-Ptolemais. Dated RY 2 of Ptolemy III = 246/5, but issued shortly before 175/4. Diademed head of Ptolemy I to right. Rev. ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΟΥ ΣΩΤΗΡΟΣ Eagle with closed wings standing left on thunderbolt; to left, monogram of ΠΤ above ΛΕ; to right, B above A. H. Aumaître & C. C. Lorber: New Evidence Concerning a Mint Imitating Ptolemaic Tetradrachms, in: INR 16 (2021), 128 (O75/R94). CPE 886B. Rare. An unusually attractive example of this fascinating and historically highly important issue. Slightly rough and with a small graffito on the obverse, otherwise, good very fine.
This highly interesting coin belongs to a group of tetradrachms of irregular style struck between the end of the 3rd century BC and 169 BC, which imitate the coinage of the first three Ptolemies. Hoard evidence and the fact that many of the prototypes were issues from Sidon, Ioppe and Ake-Ptolemais have led Aumaître and Lorber to assign these coins to the Eastern Levant, more specifically to the region of Ammanitis (Amman) in Transjordan. This area was controlled by the Jewish Tobiad family, who are attested in various literary, biblical and papyrological sources.

We first encounter a possible ancestor of the Tobiads in the biblical Book of Nehemiah, which describes how an Ammanite named Tobias tried to prevent the Jews from rebuilding Jerusalem after their return from exile in the 6th century BC. Several centuries later, in the mid 3th century BC, a chieftain named Tobias is papyrologically attested as a military ally and economic partner of the Ptolemies, who dispatched gifts such as slaves and exotic animals to Egypt. His successors remained entrenched in the area throughout the struggles between the Ptolemies and Seleukids well into the 2nd century. Flavius Josephus in particular devoted considerable attention to the Tobiad family in his Jewish Antiquities (12.4.1-11), though the so-called 'Tales of the Tobiads' are a complex mixture of historical fact and legend.

According to Josephus, a certain Joseph, probably a son or grandson of the aforementioned 3rd-century Tobias, saved Jerusalem from ruin when his uncle, Onias the High Priest, refused to pay the customary taxes to the Ptolemies. His son, Hyrkanos, was likewise known for his shrewdness and he appears to have had good relations with the Lagid court. Internal strife with his brothers led him to set himself up as an autonomous warlord in Ammanitis some time after 185, however, and he turned to harassing the local Arab tribes who allied with the Seleukids. Josephus also described his stone palace in great detail (12.4.11), which is today identified with Qasr al-Abd, an exceptionally well preserved large Hellenistic residence in western Jordan erected amidst an artificial lake. This is based upon the finding of a three inscriptions reading 'Tobiah', in Hebrew and Aramaic respectively, on the nearby burial caves of Iraq al-Amir, indicating that Qasr al-Abd and the nearby necropolis were part of the Tobiad family estates.

Aumaître and Lorber argue that Hyrkanos, being cut off from Ptolemaic support after the Seleukid victory in the Fifth Syrian War of 202-195, would have needed substantial amounts of independently produced coinage to fund his operations and building projects. They assign our coin, which imitates a tetradrachm produced in 246/5 under Ptolemy III in Ake-Ptolemais, to an issue struck by Hyrkanos shortly before 175/4. The Tobiad dynast remained a thorn in the side of the Seleukids, even harboring the fugitive former High Priest, Jason, who fled to Ammanitis twice during the power struggle with Menelaus (II Macc. 4:23.26, 5:5.5‒7). In 169, however, Antiochos IV decided to deal with the Tobiads once and for all, and as the king's forces closed in, Hyrkanos committed suicide the same year.