A puzzling coin that once served as bus fare in Leeds in the 1950s has been identified as ancient Phoenician currency. The bronze piece is estimated to be about 2,000 years old.
The coin originated in Gadir, a Carthaginian settlement in what is now Cádiz, Spain. Gadir was part of one of Europe’s longest-inhabited cities, first settled by Phoenicians around 1,100 B.C.E.
After years of wondering about its origins, the coin’s owner has donated the artifact to the Leeds Discovery Centre. The institution will now add the relic to its collection.
What was once an ordinary bus fare has become a remarkable historical object with a long and unexpected past. Its journey from ancient currency to mid-20th-century pocket change has now been traced back across more than two millennia.
