326 CHAPTER 18 THE COINS Donald T. Ariel 1 Te coins were cleaned in the IAA laboratories by Lena Kuperschmidt, Raisa Vinitzky and Ilya Reznitsky, and were photo- graphed by Clara Amit of the IAA photography studio. My thanks to Ariel Berman who identifed Nos. A213–215. Tree hundred and ninety-fve coins were found in the excavations at Subterranean Complex 169. Of these, 136 are unidentifable. Two hundred and forty-nine identifed coins are cataloged here: 216 isolated fnds (Catalog A) and a hoard of 43 coins (Catalog B). 1 As with the coins of SC57 (Ariel 2014), and the other approximately 168 subterranean complexes at Maresha, SC169 was originally created as a quarry to provide stones for the buildings aboveground, and some of the rooms were subsequently converted into functional rooms that could be identifed as a cistern and storage pits. SC169 was later flled in — intention- ally and unintentionally — with anthropogenic soil, presumably dumped directly from above. Te coins found in most of these complexes are rather uniform, essentially refecting the Hellenistic numismatic profle of Tel Maresha, and SC169 is no exception. Most of the material is from the third and second centuries BCE, although there is defnitely a small amount of mate- rial from earlier and later periods. In 2011 Hoover and I published a conspectus of 170 coins excavated in SC169 until and including the 2010 season. Today, with coins from the 2011 through 2015 seasons, the total number of identifed coins has increased by half. Te coins from SC169 are not stratifed in a strict sense, in that many do not derive from well-sealed contexts. Nevertheless, they are likely to have been closely associated with the structures located on the surface immediately above, as those structures were in use in the same period as that in which the subterranean complex itself was flled. In particular, it is noteworthy that the aboveground site, Area 800, roughly 30m from SC169, is consensually thought to have included a temple, apparently the roughly 13 x 27m-building excavated there (See Chapter 1). Te very large number of fnds in SC169 to which cultic signifcance has been ascribed also supports the idea of the importance of the buildings on the surface (See Chapter 4–12). It is therefore relevant to note that the profle of the coins excavated in SC169 provides no support, or almost none, to these ideas. Of the special fnds noted below, only the silver Ptolemaic coins may possibly indicate the wealth of a person or persons standing above the underground complex. Te other items discussed, the two almost unique bronzes of the local mint, and the hoard of small bronze coins of Antiochus III are not suggestive of any special activity going on above. Numismatic profile of the SC169 coins In 2011 Hoover and I described the profle of the coins from SC169 as mostly from the third and second centuries BCE, with a small but undeniable amount of material from later periods (2011: 70). We also noted that the coins found in most of the subterranean complexes are rather uniform, and they refect the