•294 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNN0 1758. 



with the very Phoenician letters and symbol impressed on the Sidonian coins now 

 before me. 



VI. — Fig. 7 is another brass Phoenician medal of Sidon, not a little resembling 

 those above-mentioned, both in workmanship and size, presenting on one side 

 the head of Jupiter, and on the other a human figure with a lance in its right 

 hand. This coin, which has never yet been published, is adorned with a Phoe- 

 nician legend on the reverse, different from those of all the others that have hi- 

 therto appeared. The date impressed in the exergue answers to the 26th year 

 of Sidon. 



VII. — Fig. 8 is a Phoenician medal of Sidon, being a small brass one, with a 

 veiled head on the anterior face, and the prow of a ship on the reverse. The 

 year of Sidon, preserved in the exergue is 74. 



The last Phoenician medals, Mr. S. at present produces, to settle the point in 

 view, are (fig. g) two entirely agreeing both in type and form, as remarkable as 

 any of the others. They exhibit on one side the head of Jupiter laureated, with 

 a beard; and on the reverse a double cornucopia, with 3 or 4 Phoenician ele- 

 ments, one or two of which are in a great measure defaced. A brass medal of 

 Sidon occurs in Archbishop Wake's collection, as well as one in Mr. S.'s with the 

 head of Jupiter done exactly after the same manner as the present pieces, and 

 Europa carried by a bull on the reverse; which, exclusive of the inscriptions in 

 the exergue, demonstrate the latter to belong to Sidon. The first of Mr. S.'s 

 was struck in the 143d year of the proper aera of that city, and the 2d 5 years 

 after. 



For the further illustration of what has been here advanced, it will be requisite 

 to observe, that two asras were anciently followed at Sidon ; the aera of Seleucus, 

 and another peculiar to the inhabitants of that city. On the Greek brass coins 

 of Sidon, according to F. Froelich, both these epochs seem to have been used. 

 However, the supputation p>ointed out to us by the date on the Greek medal 

 above-mentioned was undoubtedly made according to the aera of Seleucus; since 

 othenvise the year exhibited by that date must have been nearly coincident with 

 the 266th of Christ, which by those versed in this kind of literature will ne\^er 

 be allowed. For had the piece presented to our view so recent a date as Sidon 

 first became a Roman colony in the reign of Elagabalus, above 40 years before; 

 the reverse ought to have been adorned with some other letters intimating this, 

 as were those of the Sidonian coins posterior to that event. As certain is it 

 that all the Phoenician medals of Sidon, whose numeral characters have been in- 

 terpreted here, acknowledge no other epoch than the proper one of that city, 

 which commenced in the year of Rome 643. 



The powers of the Phoenician numeral characters anciently used at Sidon, 

 now discovered, having been for many ages unknown ; they are now deduced 



