Ptolemaic Coins from the Collection of the State Historical Museum I. From Ptolemy I to Ptolemy IV

The paper presents a collection of early Ptolemaic coins (from Ptolemy I to Ptolemy IV) from the collection of the State Historical Museum (Moscow). It includes 168 specimens. A significant part of the Ptolemaic coins collection of the State Historical Museum was compiled at the end of the XIX – first half of the XX century. There are no precise details about the provenance of most of the specimens. A part of the collection comes from private collections of the 20th century. While most of the specimens belong to well-known coin types, which have been widely published in various catalogues, the collection also includes very rare and unique coins which have not yet been the focus of detailed study. The State Historical Museum holds 31 coins of Ptolemy I, 51 coins of Ptolemy II, 55 coins of Ptolemy III and 20 coins of Ptolemy IV. All of them refer to different silver and bronze denominations. The coins of Ptolemy III and Ptolemy IV are of a wide variety of bronze denominations issued in Alexandria. Most of the coins were issued at the mint of Alexandria, but some specimens belong to the output of the mints of Tyre, Berenice (Libya), Cyprus, Sicily and others. The specimen No. 116 is of particular interest as it belongs to the «Corinthian series» of bronze coins of Ptolemy III. The metrological analysis of the coins of this series suggests that this specimen belongs to the trichalcus. This denomination has not been previously recorded for this series.