Shekel (Coin) Depicting the God Melkarth (31-30 BCE): Artwork and History

Shekel (Coin) Depicting the God Melkarth (31-30 BCE) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Phoenician, minted in Tyre, Syria.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

The front of this coin depicts the god Melkarth (also spelled Melkart, Melqart), the Tyrian version of the Greek hero Herakles, wearing a crown of laurels. On the back an eagle stands facing left, a palm branch visible over its right wing. The inscription translates to "of Tyre the holy and inviolable."

Object facts

• Title: Shekel (Coin) Depicting the God Melkarth
• Date: 31-30 BCE
• Artist attribution: Phoenician, minted in Tyre, Syria
• Place of origin: Tyre
• Medium: Silver
• Dimensions: Diam.: 2.6 cm (1 1/16 in.)
• Type: Coin
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1923.1160

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. William Nelson Pelouze

View the original

Explore the artwork in the Art Institute's collection, including its image and the museum's current catalogue details.

The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.