REL_26.GIF Coin, detail (640 X 285, 256 grayscale)
The obverse shows the diademed head of Demetrius to the right. On the reverse is an eagle perched on a prow, at its shoulder a palm branch; in the left field is a club surmounted by the monogram of Tyre and the letters APE. In the right field are the letters A-sigma and the date 186 of the seleucid era; between the eagle's legs is a symbol. Around all is the inscription "Of King Demetrius"
The Qumran Hoard of Silver Coins
24 silver coins
Between 136/135 and 10/9 B.C.E.
Pere Roland de Vaux, a mid twentieth-century excavator of Qumran, relied heavily on coin evidence for his dating and interpretations of the various strata of the site. The early coins in the hoard were minted in Tyre and included tetradrachms of Antiochus VII Sidetes and Demetrius II Nicator (136/135-127/126 B.C.E.), as well as six Roman Republican denarii from the mid-first century B.C.E. The bulk of the hoard represents the autonomous continuation of the Seleucid mint.
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