Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian) · other

Tetradrachm (Coin) Portraying Emperor Hadrian

Source of record: Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian) — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

The front (obverse) of this coin portrays Emperor Hadrian. The back (reverse) depicts Serapis enthroned to the left.

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 both faces of a small ancient coin with a portrait of an emperor on the obverse and an enthroned/standing figure or deity-like personification on the reverse, surrounded by Greek-style lettering.

Two views of a circular metal tetradrachm are shown side-by-side: the left face displays a left-facing youthful/royal portrait with surrounding lettering in a non-Egyptian script, while the right face shows a larger central figure (appearing seated or standing on a platform) with additional surrounding lettering. The inscriptions appear Greek or Hellenistic rather than Egyptian hieroglyphs; no clear cartouche format is visible. The metal surface is worn, with high relief but softened details, suggesting a corroded billon alloy coin. No legible deities in an Egyptian iconographic scheme can be confidently identified from the image alone.

royal Roman imperial (Hadrianic period), likely 2nd century CE (exact dating uncertain from image alone) good
Royals Hadrian (catalogue attribution; not clearly readable on image)
Materials metal (billon appearance)
Signs Greek-style inscription/letters around portrait (unreadable due to wear/resolution)

Connections

Deities Serapis
Materials Metal

Cross-references (1)

  • ARTIC-id 142044 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.