# help with a mysteryous ancient coin/medal



## omarV

Hi everyone! i've got this mysterious coin/medal/sth, which you can see here: 

Front 
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/9844/moneda.jpg 

Reverse 
http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/7574/moneda2.jpg 

This was a gift from the British Embassador in Uruguay, Mr. Bering, around 1905, to my great grandmother. She passed it on to my grandma then, and she's been really curious about it so we decided to find out, now in 2010, what it is. 

My great grandmother always said (says my grandma because i never got to meet her) that Mr. Berig told her it was one of the coins that were paid to Judas when he sold Jesus out. According to the bible they were silver coins and this one isn't. Besides, they probably were Roman coins or something of that time, and my grandma has taken it to several numismatics and rabbi and they've found nothing on their books. All this makes it unlikley for the coin to be one of Judas' 30, but even if it were, the British Embassador wouldn't have been carrying it around, let alone give it away. 

The coin has a long-haired man with some sort of sword hilt coming out of his nose and something really weird on the back of his head, sth you would expect to be the other end of the sword, but it's an N or a Z, depending on how you look at it. On the reverse there's some unkown language inscription even more wierd. 

So no one really knows what it is, neither the language writen on the reverse. It's a mystery, maybe it's not a coin at all and that's why numismatics don't find it, maybe it's some sort of commemorative medal. 

I've posted on several forums and got that this was most likely a souvenir sold to pilgrims who visited the holly land in the 20th century and that this language is not Aramaic. I believe, if the souvenir version is true, that language must be hebrew and the rabbi my grandma visited was a compete conman XD.  

It'd be great if someone could translate what is written on the reverse and even greater if you could tell me what the heck this is.

a lot of thanks in advance 
bye


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## yuval9

i can see the hebrew letters but i don't really understand what it mean
on the front i see ישי . 
maybe it is ישו. it means "jesus" in hebrew, but this name was given to him by the jews
it can also be an abbreviation for ישוע , which means Jesus

on the back side i see some  words but i don't know what it means
i can see:
עשוי - made / made of
חי - alive 
i think i can see כולו - all of it
i am not sure about the first letter, but it looks like the first word is סטיח. the only word that i can think of is שטיח. it means carpet (also an animal's skin in old hebrew)
i think i can see ארם or ארמ - Aram


maybe someone else could do better, but i think it's hebrew


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## origumi

Hard to read. What I see is:

Side A
"ישו" = "Jesus"

Side B
"משיח מלך בא בשלום אדם אדם ישו חי" = "Messiah king comes in peace (or in safety), man man Jesus is alive".

With high level of uncertainty. It may be the Hebrew version of NT verse(s).


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## omarV

wow thanks a lot!! at least that solves the sword mystery XD. I'd never seen the hebrew alphabet in my life so forgive my ingorance when i thought it was a sword (you have to admit it kinda looks like it). Besides this confirms the rabbi my grandma visited was a complete fraud.  

thank you for the translation, i think it makes sense: if it were a souvenir as i was told, that's the kind of message you would write on it, but if it were a commemorative medal you would write some sort of congratulation message or what the medal is meant to commemorate.

this pretty much solves it i think, but further interpretations to make a more accurate translation are gladly accepted 

bye and thanks again!!


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## NymphetamineGirl

I have the same coin and its confusing me also im going to get it looked at by people to see what it is exactly as this is the only website that has coin and everyone so far i have been to has no clue.
if anyone knows anything more it would be awesome to know.
thanks


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## omarV

NymphetamineGirl said:


> I have the same coin and its confusing me also im going to get it looked at by people to see what it is exactly as this is the only website that has coin and everyone so far i have been to has no clue.
> if anyone knows anything more it would be awesome to know.
> thanks



this was most likely a souvenir sold to pilgrims who visited the holly land in the 20th century, which adds up with the hebrew translation. I hope you didn't get too excited about it lol, it's a simple souvenir. Anyway there's never absolute certainty about this stuff, but it kinda makes sense, i mean, if it were a commemorative medal it would have some sort of grip or sth i don't know, to hang it around your neck, and the text would make referernce to what it's meant to commemorate. Even if the translation isn't completely accurate, i believe you can tell it's not a commemorative medal.

hope this helped, bye


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## NymphetamineGirl

oh im not getting exited just more curious really thats all lol. just really want to know what it is like properly from someone who would know more about it thats all this was just a start really.
so thanks


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## origumi

More info here. 18th century. About $100: http://images.goldbergauctions.com/php/lot_auc.php?site=1&sale=44&lot=5190&lang=1
Or maybe 16th century: http://www.antipas.org/books/brethren_in_christ/binc_07.html
And a full article here: http://andrewjbrown.blogspot.com/2007/12/messiah-of-kingdom-of-peace-first.html with an attempt to read the coin, maybe a little better than the above, maybe not.


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## Aoyama

In fact, I own exactly the same "medal". It is called the "Campo-Formio" Christ medal. It is Christian, in bronze, roughly the size of a US 5c coin.
I Googled 'Campo-Formio Christ medal' but didn't find anything. I had, together with the coin, a small "brochure" with an explanation of the medal. I don't have it any more. I guess the medal has been minted around 1880-1890.
I checked again, I found this :
http://www.arsantiqva.com/download/aste/venvs/serenissima_3/pdf/17.pdf see the second medal, you'll find some ressemblance with our medal.
I have no idea why the medal with Christ was called "Campo-Formio medal", but I'm sure it was.

As origumi already found out (and mentioned), this thread deals with the same medal http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=74480 (though maybe the writing is slightly different, my guess is that a few versions of this medal, with small differences -in writings and maybe in size- must have been minted, at different periods).


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