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Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian) · other

Coin Portraying Emperor Nero

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 the bust of Emperor Nero, facing left, radiate, wearing a cuirass (breastplate), "L l∆" before. On the back (reverse) is depicted a bust of Goddess Hera Argeia, facing right, veiled, with a star before. The date this coin was struck is indicated in the obverse inscription " LI ∆ ", which means the fourteenth year of Nero's reign, or 67-68 CE. Nero reigned as emperor from 54-68 CE.

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.

Two views (obverse and reverse) of a small ancient coin showing a left-facing emperor portrait and a seated/crowned figure on the reverse, with short Greek-style letters around the portrait.

The image presents two coin faces side-by-side. On the left (one face), there is a profile portrait of a man facing left with a laurel/curled hair style; multiple short characters appear around the portrait in a Greek-like letterform style rather than Egyptian hieroglyphs. On the right (the opposite face), there is a figure wearing a headdress (appears like a helmet or crown) and holding or posed with a vertical attribute; additional short characters are visible in the field, including what looks like a letter cluster ending with an 'A' shape. No Egyptian hieroglyphic cartouches are clearly legible, and no clear Coptic/Arabic text is visible. The coin surface shows typical struck metal wear and corrosion. The catalogue material is given as billon; the metallic look (grayish, corroded) is consistent with a low-silver alloy but cannot be confirmed precisely from the image alone.

royal Roman Imperial (likely 1st century CE) good
Materials billon (low-silver alloy; appears gray/metallic)
Signs Greek-style letters (unreadable except partial shapes) ×2
Visible text "Partial Greek-like letter(s) only; exact wording unclear/unreadable."

Inscriptions (1)

Inscription #1

English description

Obverse: NEΡ[Ω KΛAV KAIΣ] ΣEB ΓEΡ AV, LIΔ to left Reverse: HΡA [AΡΓEIA]

Cross-references (1)

  • ARTIC-id 142289 tier-2

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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.