An intriguing coin deposited in a bus driver’s box in England in the 1950s turned out to have ancient origins: It was minted 2,000 years ago in what is now southern Spain. Now, more than 70 years later, the grandson of the former transport treasurer has donated the mysteriously acquired coin to a museum.
The cashier, James Edwards, worked for Leeds City Transport and was tasked with collecting and counting fares from bus and tram drivers. Whenever he discovered fake or foreign coins, he took them home to his grandson, Peter.
“None of us were coin collectors, but we were fascinated by their provenance and images – to me they were treasures,” said Peter Edwards in a March 9. statement.
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But one particular coin intrigued Peter, whose research into the designs on the coin showed that it was minted more than 2,000 years ago in a Phoenician settlement called Gadir (now known as the city of Cádiz) in Spain’s Andalusia region.
Gadir was founded by the Phoenicians, who also settled Carthage in what is now Tunisia, as their earliest colony in Western Europe in the 12th century BC. Gadir came under Carthaginian control after the First Punic War in the early third century BC. Novel rule less than a century later.
The face of the bronze coin bears the face of the god Melqart – a Phoenician god who was the main god of Gadir, Carthage and Tire – wearing lion skin headdress of Hercules. On the reverse side of the coin are two bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus), probably a reference to the importance of the fishing industry in Gadir.
How the coin ended up in Leeds is unclear, but “it wasn’t long after the war, so I imagine soldiers were coming back with coins from countries they had been sent to,” Edwards said.
Edwards has donated the coin to Leeds museums and galleries allowing experts to study it as part of the museum’s collection of ancient currency. Cat Baxtercurator of archeology and numismatics for the museums, confirmed in the statement that the coin is around 2,000 years old and was minted in Gadir.
“Museums like ours aren’t just about preserving artefacts, they’re also about telling stories like this and inspiring visitors to think about the history that’s all around us, sometimes in the most unlikely places,” Leeds City Councilor Salma Arif said in the statement.
“My grandfather would be proud to know, as I am, that the coin is coming back to Leeds,” Edwards said. “But how it got there will always be a mystery.”
