THE COINAGE OF ANCIENT MAURETANIA

ANCIENT MAURETANIA WAS a region of coastal North Africa stretching from modern-day Algeria to Morocco. It should not be confused with the modern West African nation of Mauritania (spelled differently). The inhabitants of Mauretania were ancestors of the modern people known as Berbers. The Greeks knew them as Mauroi (?a????). To the Romans, they were Mauri. This term comes into English as "Moor", a name that has been applied to a variety of African people; for example, Shakespeare's Othello, the "Moor of Venice."

Bocchus I

The earliest king of Mauretania known to history was Baga, who ruled c.225 BCE from his capital of Chellah (near Rabat, Morocco). The first ruler for whom we have coins was probably Bocchus (or Boccus), who reigned from about 111 to 80 BCE. Some very crude bronze coins are attributed to Bocchus (or possibly his son). A "half unit" of 4.5 grams shows a long-haired bearded head in profile on the obverse and a star between a cluster of grapes and an ear of grain on the reverse. A "unit" of about 9.4 grams shows the same obverse portrait, with a standing figure on the reverse.

Camarata
Some Mauretanian coins are attributed by city rather than ruler, and they can only be dated approximately – "late 2nd – 1st century BCE", for example. An example from Camarata[7] (km' in Punic) bears the same crude male head on the obverse and a cluster of grapes and an ear of grain on the reverse.

Collecting Mauretania
The standard reference for the ancient coinage of Mauretania is Mazard (1955) in French. Long out of print, second-hand copies sell for as much as $250-300, with a later paperback reprint occasionally going for much less. Jean Mazard (1900-1984) was a jurist and numismatist who lived in Algeria and assembled an extensive collection of ancient North African coins. An even earlier work, Müller (1862), is still cited in auction catalog listings.

Many royal Mauretanian coins that appear on the market today derive from a single huge hoard of some 4,000 silver pieces buried c. 17-18 CE near Souk el-Arbaa, Morocco. The "Banasa/El Ksar Hoard" was discovered in 1907 and dispersed to various museums and private (mostly French) collections.

To read the complete article, see:
The Coinage of Ancient Mauretania (https://coinweek.com/ancient-coins/the-coinage-of-ancient-mauretania/)

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