A hoard of silver cash from the third century B.C. stashed tightly in a pottery jar has been found on the archaeological website of Mleiha within the United Arab Emirates. The pot contained 409 silver cash of the tetradrachm kind, the designs impressed by the cash minted by Alexander the Nice and his Seleucid heirs.
The pottery jar was unearthed in 2021. Formed like a clamshell with one flattened half, it has a small opening on the neck flanked by two pierced tabs the place a deal with or rope could have been threaded. When archaeologists excavated it, they have been stunned at how heavy it was, weighing 9 kg (simply shy of 20 lbs). The pot was then opened on the Sharjah Archaeology Authority analysis laboratory, revealing 387 single-sided cash and 22 two-sided cash weighing between 16 and 17 grams apiece.
The earliest of the cash depict Alexander the Nice sporting the Nemean lion pores and skin, trademark of Hercules, on the obverse, and Zeus enthroned with the eagle on his employees on the reverse. The one-sided cash function Zeus enthroned. The newer cash probability in order that the Greek inscription is changed by Aramaic inscriptions and native iconography.
Situated between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, Mleiha was one of the crucial essential cities within the Arabian Peninsula through the pre-Islamic interval. Believed to have been the capital of the Kingdom of Oman, it was a thriving desert farming group sustained by an underground irrigation system often called falaj, and a cease on the commerce routes that related India and the Mediterranean. Retailers carrying spices, textiles and valuable metals traveled by way of Mleiha, and wanted identifiable foreign money that may be accepted irrespective of the place they have been. Therefore the minting of cash impressed by Greek originals.
Related Hellenistic-style cash have been discovered at different historical websites on the Persian Gulf, proof that the Hellenistic business and cultural energy prolonged to the Arabian Peninsula the place it was altered and personalised to include native tradition. The Mleiha hoard’s transition from imitation to customization is a microcosm of the area’s shift from Greek dominance to the evolution of Arabia as a cultural and financial energy participant in its personal proper.
The cash and the pot have been extensively photographed to create 3D fashions. That is the primary coin hoard I’ve seen the place each piece might be explored digitally close-up from each angle. It’s fascinating to see the development of
