Sale: CNG 63, Lot: 845. Estimate $100.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 21 May 2003.  Sold For $500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

GALILEE, Tiberias. Arab-Byzantine issue. After 641 CE. Æ Fals (3.34 gm). Heraclius and sons standing facing / Large M, A below, THBEPIADOC in Greek and Arabic around. Walker pg. 16, 49. Good VF, desert patina on a full flan. Nice for these. ($100)

Byzantine authority collapsed in the face of repeated assaults on the borders of Syria-Palestine in the late 6th-early 7th century CE. As a result of this power vacuum, the cities of the region began to strike their first autonomous civic coinage in almost 400 years. This became the basis for the Islamic system of dispersed local mints providing regional coinage.