Transport of the Baetyl of El-Gabal to Rome

264, Lot: 453. Estimate $500. Sold for $800. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Elagabalus. AD 218-222. AR Denarius (19mm, 2.46 g, 6h). Eastern mint. Struck AD 218-219. Laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / SANCT DEO SOLI, ELAGABAL in exergue, quadriga right bearing stone of Emesa upon which is an eagle; four parasols around. RIC IV 195; RSC 268. Good VF, porous, minor obverse die shift, some light marks in fields.

At the age of fourteen, Varius Avitus Bassianus (Elagabalus) inherited the office of high priest of the sun-god El-Gabal at Emesa in Syria. The cult of his sun god was represented by a sacred stone (or baetyl), and in AD 219 when he moved from Emesa to Rome, he took this stone, probably a meteorite, with him. This coin type commemorates the event.