Preliminary notes on Phoenician and Punic Coins kept in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow

The numismatic collection conserved at the Pushkin Museum ,one of the most prestigious collections of ancient coins, since its origin in the second half of the 18th century, boasts 170 Phoenician and Punic coins in silver and bronze from the end of the V century. to the I century B.C. Our decision to publish numismatic material regarding Phoenicians and Carthaginians arises from a desire to highlight the common Near East cultural matrix that binds them together and of which the Phoenician language is the most prominent evidence. In the Pushkin Museum collection of particular relevance are the silver and bronze coins from the mints of Aradus, Sidon and Tyre, which comprise coins dating back to the period that spans from the end of the V century to the I century B.C. Besides there are also coins from the Hellenistic mints of Marathus and Tripolis. According to the Punic documentation the tetradrachm, with forehorse on the obverse side and a palm tree on the reverse side with the following legend qrthdst/mhnt ,dates back to 410 B.C. This series, which was the first distinct Carthaginian coinage to be struck, was used to pay the mercenary troops engaged in the first Punic war in Sicily. The series minted in this African metropolis and in other regions of the empire are well documented but also the coins relative to the neopunic mints in Pantelleria, Malta and the islands in the Sicilian Channel are of great interest.