ZEUGITANE - CARTHAGE 270-264 Siculo-Punic coinage from the time of Hannibal Head of Tanit** on left, crowned with ears of wheat, adorned with triple earrings and a beaded necklace with pendants. Grenetis. R/. Free horse standing right, turning head to left. ♦ Muller (Africa) 66; Jenkins & Lewis 390; SNG Copenhagen 181; Jenkins & Lewis 390 Gold trihemisphere equivalent to an eginetic statere (12.40 g). Very rare. A very fine example. **Tanit was the primary deity of Carthage, a celestial deity with some aspects of fertility, a North African equivalent of Astarte. She is always depicted on the coin wearing a crown of wheat ears borrowed from Demeter and Persephone, as the Carthaginians assimilated Sicilian culture into their own during the various Punic excursions to the island. On the reverse, the horse is also linked to Carthaginian tradition. According to Virgil's Aeneid, the Phoenician colonists who founded Carthage were invited by Juno (or Tanit) to establish the new colony on the spot where they discovered a horse's head in the ground.