Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian) · other

Coin Portraying Emperor Antoninus Pius

Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian), acc. 1981.428. Public domain (CC0). Copy archived by egyptianinscriptions.org with attribution; original at the holding institution.

Accession: 1981.428
Date: 145
Materials: ['Billon']
Repository: Art Institute of Chicago
At source: View original →

Cite & export

Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian), Coin Portraying Emperor Antoninus Pius (1981.428). Egyptian Inscriptions Database. https://egyptianinscriptions.org/object/208550

JSON →

Description

The front (obverse) of this coin portrays the emperor Antoninus Pius, facing right and wearing a crown of laurels. On the back (reverse), the god Serapis is depicted wearing a type of headdress called a modius, which is ornamented with laurels.

AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano

Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.

The image shows two sides of a small ancient coin with a left-facing imperial-style portrait on one side and a reverse type with a crowned/ornamented figure on the other, both surrounded by ring text-like marks.

Two views of a coin are presented side-by-side: obverse (left) shows a left-facing bust of an emperor with laurel and the vertically arranged letters around the rim; reverse (right) shows a central, crowned/ornamented figure (or emblem) with letters and small symbols flanking it, also within the outer rim. The surfaces show typical metal coin wear and uneven patina. No Egyptian hieroglyphs or Coptic/Arabic text are legible; the inscriptions visible appear Latin/abbreviated letterforms rather than Egyptian scripts.

royal Roman Imperial period (2nd century CE), consistent with Antoninus Pius coinage good

Royals Antoninus Pius (attribution consistent with catalogue; exact legend not fully legible)

Materials metal (billon, as catalogued)

Signs Rim inscription/lettering (Latin-style abbreviations) ×2

Visible text "Legends are present as ring text/lettering, but the exact words/abbreviations are not clearly readable in this image."

Inscriptions (1)

Inscription #1 AI reading of the photograph

Visible text (machine reading)

Legends are present as ring text/lettering, but the exact words/abbreviations are not clearly readable in this image.

Connections

Deities Serapis

Cross-references (1)

ARTIC-id 62798 tier-2

About this record's data

From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian).
AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.