20070419

Hadrian & Sabina CE 117-138 Provincial Judea


Provincial Syria Palaestina (Judea)
AELIA CAPITOLINA (Jerusalem), AE 20 mm, 7.68 g, c. CE 130-138
Meshorer 7
O: [IMP CAE TR HAD AVG] laur bust of Hadrian r.
R: [SABIN AVGVS] hd of Empress Sabina r.

Ex: Amphora
Mildenberg states the following about this issue: " The other issue in the third group of Aelia coins, that with the portraits of Sabina, however, carries the curiously abbreviated legends IMP CAE TR HAD AVG and SABIN AVGVS on the obverse and reverse respectively. If this issue belongs to Aelia--and there is some question since the city is not mentioned in the legends--as indeed seems likely (BMC p. 83, 4-5: "Attribution conjectural, but favoured by fabric and style"), then it must have been struck before Sabina's death around autumn 136 because she is still not DIVA. This means that the Sabina issue was struck either during the ten to twelve-month period before the end of the war and the death of the empress or before the war between 130 and autumn 132, like the first group of Aelia coins."
----Mildenberg, L. Typos VI The Coinage of the Bar Kokhba War, 1984, pp. 100-101.