![]() This silver coinage may have been accompanied, in its later stages, by the first Carthaginian gold coinage, known as Jenkins-Lewis, Group I. In the final sub-group, F, the forepart of the horse is replaced with a full horse, prancing freely. From sub-group B, the obverse also features a winged Nike flying over the horse, holding a caduceus and a wreath. The reverse depicts a date palm tree, with the inscription MḤNT (□□□□, 'the encampment'). The obverse of these earliest coins bears the front half of a horse facing right, with a Punic language legend reading QRTḤDŠT (□□□□□□□, 'Carthage'). ![]() 410-390 BC), containing five separate chronological sub-groups (A-F). This coinage consisted solely of Attic weight silver tetradrachms (17.26 g), known as Series I (c. The first Carthaginian coinage seems to have been minted in 410 or 409 BC, to pay for the massive Carthaginian military intervention in Sicily that led to the Second Sicilian War (410-404 BC) and it continued through until the end of the Third Sicilian War (398-393 BC). Reverse: date palm, legend reads □□□□ ( MḤNT, 'the encampment'). Obverse: Nike flying over horse forepart facing right, grain of wheat at right, legend reads □□□□□□□ ( QRTḤDŠT, 'Carthage'). This Siculo-Punic coinage probably preceded Phoenicia's own Tyrian shekels, which developed c. Like the coinage produced by the Greek communities in Sicily, it was minted solely in silver on the Attic-Euboic weight standard, and its iconography was mostly adapted from other pre-existing Sicilian coinages - principally those of Himera, Segesta, and Syracuse. The coinage that these communities produced is known as Siculo-Punic coinage. The first Punic mints were in western Sicily, at Motya and Ṣyṣ (probably Panormus, modern Palermo). Carthage soon became the largest of these communities, establishing particularly close economic, cultural, and political ties with Motya in western Sicily and Sulci in Sardinia.Īlthough coinage began to be minted by Greek communities in Sicily and Southern Italy around 540 BC, Punic communities did not begin producing coins until around 425 BC. Background īetween the ninth and seventh centuries BC, the Phoenicians established colonies throughout the western Mediterranean, particularly in North Africa, western Sicily, Sardinia, and southern Iberia. Instead, the majority derive from Carthage's holdings in Sardinia and western Sicily. ![]() Only a minority of Carthaginian coinage was produced or used in North Africa. The base denomination was the shekel, probably pronounced /səˈḳel/ in Punic. Between the late fifth century BC and its destruction in 146 BC, Carthage produced a wide range of coinage in gold, electrum, silver, billon, and bronze. Carthaginian or Punic currency refers to the coins of ancient Carthage, a Phoenician city-state located near present-day Tunis, Tunisia.
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