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too much refembles the fquare or Chaldee Koph . 
The character denominated Koppa , vifible on the 
characters above-mentioned were not received in fo large, opulent, 
and polite a city as Sidon, before the year of Rome 643 ; it is 
utterly improbable, that they fhould have been ufed at Marathus, 
or any other obfcure place of Phoenicia, before the commence- 
ment of that year. Nay, it is highly probable, that the intro- 
duction of them there was pofterior to it. Now if thefe numeral 
characters were firft received at Marathus in the year of Roma 
643, or rather a little after that year, fome of M. 1’ Abbe’s pre- 
tended coins of Marathus were (truck there in the days of Strabo. 
But then, according to that excellent b author, the city was de- 
ftroyed, and it’s territory occupied by the Aradians, amongft 
whom it was divided by lot ; fo that the foregoing fuppofition is, 
at firft fight, manifeftly abfurd. Farther, the word on thefe 
medals taken by M. l’Abbe to denote Marathus is frequently 
not as he fuppofes, but 2rHD» though on fome few 
of them part of the laft letter only appears. 'I his M. l’Abbe, 
without any manner of foundation, feerns to think a new form 
of the Ajin c , and believes it to be the initial letter of the name 
of a month ; though he had before, in a great meafure at leaft, 
exploded the notion of fuch initial letters. In fine the confuta- 
tions now fubmitted to the judgment of the learned abfolutely 
determined me to cancel part of a fheet of a fmall work, put to 
the prefs here, in 1753; w,iere ‘ n * aflerted, and endeavoured to 
prove, that thofe coins belonged to Marathus. ^ his will be at- 
tefted by the workmen I imployed, and the imprimatvr given 
me by the Rev. Dr. Brown, Matter of Univerfity College, our 
worthy Vice-Chancellor, at that time. The cancelled part of a 
Ihect is ft ill in my hands. .* 
In farther eviction of what has been advanced, relative to 
the 7 initial letters in the exergues of certain Sidoman coins ; it 
mav not be improper to obferve, that a medal in my fmall col- 
leaion exhibits the letter Hheth, immediately after the numerical 
inlcription in the exergue. This probably represents the 
word ’VH, DiMinivM, half; as both that term and VQi, or 
vrD n> qvadrans, qv arter, are exprefled at length on fome 
D Strab. Gtograpb. Lib. xvi. p. 1093. Amftelxdami, 1707. 
c Journ. des Sfcrv. Aout 1760. p. 275. A Amlterdam, 1760. 
«i See Plate Fig. 
part 
