ARTIC-EG
Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian) · other
Tetradrachm (Coin) Portraying Emperor Claudius II Gothicus
Description
The front (obverse) of this coin portrays the bust of emperor Claudius II Gothicus. The back (reverse) depicts a bust of the god Hermanubis facing right, wearing a modius (headdress), with a winged caduceus, palm atop. The date this coin was struck is indicated in the reverse inscription " LB", which means the second year of Claudius's reign, or 268-269 CE. Claudius II Gothicus reigned from 268-270. One interesting feature of this particular coin is that the back side appears to have been struck more than once, a manufacturing error that is also referred to as a double exposure. This occurs when the coin has duplicate images from being struck again, off center.
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 views of a small, worn coin: the obverse with a right-facing male portrait and the reverse with a crowned/ornamented emblem or figure.
Two coin faces are photographed side-by-side against a neutral gray background. On the left (obverse) there is a detailed portrait of a bearded/balding male with a laurel or hair/helmet-like framing, shown in profile facing right. The surface is heavily worn, but facial features and surrounding ridged border are visible. On the right (reverse) there is a clustered, highly worn design that appears to include a central crowned or radiate element surrounded by raised circular/ornamental marks; the outer edge is also defined by a coin rim. No clear Egyptian hieroglyphs are visible; the motifs resemble Roman/late Roman numismatic iconography rather than Egyptian inscriptions. No legible Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is visible at this resolution; any inscription is too worn to read.
modern replica
unclear (catalogue indicates Roman/late Roman, emperor Claudius II Gothicus; exact Egyptian context not determinable from the image)
poor
Materials
metal (billon, as catalogued)
Inscriptions (1)
Inscription #1
English description
Obverse: AVT K KΛAYΔIOC CEB Reverse: LB
Cross-references (1)
- ARTIC-id 133564 tier-2
Similar inscriptions · by content embedding
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.