1 Ake-Ptolemais (also Akko, Acco, Accho, Acre, Saint-Jean d’Acre) was an important Phoenician port. The name Ake (Akko, Acco) means hot sand. Its history is very old and the city is mentioned in Egyptian texts from the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC. It originally belonged to the Phoenicians. When the Israelites came to the land of Canaan, in the 13th century BC, the area of Ake was assigned to the tribe of Asher, but the Israelites were never able to occupy it. Ake afterwards passed into the hands of the Babylonians, and from them to the Persians. After the death of Alexander the Great, it passed to the Ptolemaic Empire. In about 260 BC, its original name was changed to Ptolemais, probably in honor of Ptolemy II. The city was under Seleukid rule from 200 BC, after the battle of Panion (the defeat of Ptolemy V by Antiochos III). From the time of Antiochos IV, it bore the additional name of Antioch. The quasi-municipal coins from the 2nd century BC bear the inscription ‘ΑΝΤΙΟΧΕΩΝ ΤΩΝ ΕΝ ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΔΙ’, i.e. “Antioch in Ptolemais” (Antiochos IV probably founded a colony there named after himself). Seleukid royal coins were minted there from Seleukos IV to Antiochos IX (except of Antiochos VII). The city was captured by Alexander Jannaeus in 104/3 BC. See, e.g., Head, Historia Numorum, Ptolemais-Ace; Houghton, CSE, Ake-Ptolemais (p. 77); Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, Ace.

2 The omphalos (“navel” in Greek) was a sacred stone at Delphi. It was supposed to mark the center of the earth. Similar stones were erected in several areas surrounding the Mediterranean Sea.

Pausanias, Description of Greece, 10.16.3: What is called the Omphalus by the Delphians is made of white marble, and is said by the Delphians to be the center of all the earth.

3 An ornamented high end of the stern of ancient galleys (the up-curving timbers of the hull terminated in a fan-like or plum-like ornament).

4 My sincere thanks to Arthur A. Houghton and Oliver D. Hoover for their expert opinion on this coin.