102140 | FRANCE. Mutual Fire Insurance silver Jeton.

102140  |  FRANCE. Mutual Fire Insurance silver Jeton. Issued 1819 for the Seine & Oise Departments (not including Paris) (32mm, 12.50 g, 12h). By Barre at the Paris mint.

 

IL RENAIT DE SES CENDRES (he is reborn from his ashes), falcon standing left (likely representing the triple god Ptah-Seker-Osiris), wearing atef crown with solar disk and two uraei; serpent to right; to lower left, altar bearing radiant head and supporting egg among flames / ASSURANCE MUTUELLE CONTRE L'INCENDIE, DÉPts DE / SEINE ET OISE / ET DE LA SEINE / (PARIS EXCEPTÉ) in four lines within oak wreath. Edge: Plain.

 

About Uncirculated Details. Highly brilliant and lustrous, with some alluring iridescence nearer the peripheries, though some scattered hairlines from a light cleaning are noted for completeness. A very rare and highly interesting type featuring a good deal of iconography from ancient Egypt.

 

One of the more historically important events involved in Napoleon's French campaign into Egypt during the end of the 18th century was the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799. A stele from Ptolemaic Egypt that conveyed a decree from the king in three different languages (Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic, and Ancient Greek), it provided the first chance to crack the code of hieroglyphics, which to that point had remained shrouded in mystery. The first transliteration of the hieroglyphics was completed by Jean-François Champollion in 1822, which the discovery of the stone arousing great interest in all things ancient Egyptian—likely the reason for the use of iconography here, just three years before Champollion's transliteration.

 

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