2011 Gold Proof €50 - EXPLORERS 'THE PHOENICIANS IN MALTA'

A Gold Proof coin commemorating Phoenician Explorers, issued as part of the Europa Programme 2011 ‘Explorers’. The Phoenicians, an ancient nation of seafarers and traders, inhabited a small country on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea whose indigenous name was Kanaan. Its two main maritime cities were Sidon and Tyre. In their westward voyages in pursuit of new trading opportunities since the second millennium B.C., the Phoenicians founded many colonies in the Mediterranean as far west as Spain. The exact date of their settlement in Malta, whose large, sheltered harbour they exploited to great commercial advantage, is not known but it is generally accepted that they occupied the Maltese Islands around the 8th century B.C.

The most important colony of the Phoenicians was the city of Carthage, on the Tunisian headland in North Africa. In the course of time, the Carthaginians supplanted the Phoenicians in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean, including in Malta some three centuries later.

Diameter 21mm

Gross weight 6.50gr

Alloy 0.916 Gold

Minting limit 10,000