Nothing makes an ancient coin more fascinating than an inscription in a language that hasn't been spoken or written in over a thousand years! Unlike spoken languages, a pretty substantial portion of extinct writing scripts appear on coins that circulated in the region where the population could read it. Everyone knows about Latin, Greek and Chinese, so let's make a virtual collection of our dead-language coins! Cuneiform Sadly, despite surviving until the Parthian era, it does not appear that humanity's first written script ever made it onto a coin. I would love to be proven wrong! Egyptian - Hieroglyphics As far as I know, only present on the prohibitively rare Nectanebo stater. - Hieratic / Demotic Both were used on imitations of Athenian tetradrachms. While not particularly expensive, they are rare, and I have never seen one at auction! Cypriot Originating from the mysterious Minoan "linear A" script, ancient coins of Cyprus up until the time of Alexander the Great use Cypriot syllabery. I only have one coin, where the letters are nearly impossible to distinguish. Unread Cypriot in front of the eagle's breast. Hemiobol of Pyntas II Sabaean A distant cousin to Phoenician-based languages, Sabaean was used particularly by the kingdom of Himyar until it was destroyed by Aksum in the early middle ages. It is the direct ancestor of the Ethiopian Ge'ez script. Himyar AR "quinarius", Amdan Bayyin Phoenician Although the Phoenician empire had collapsed by the time of the advent of coinage, the language persisted until at least the Seleucid era, and some coins were inscribed in Phoenician. Sadly, I don't have any to share yet. - Punic The Phoenician language was modified into Punic for use in Carthage and her colonies. Sadly, none to share yet - Iberian Before the Roman takeover of present-day Spain, Iberia was populated by a mixture of the indigenous population, Celtic settlers, Greek merchants, and finally Punic colonists. The Iberian script was loosely based on Punic, but functionally was closer to an abjad than an alphabet; vowels and consonants usually being combined into a single letter. The script and related languages were lost during the Romanization of Hispania. Iberia, Bolskan AR Denarius Aramaic Derived from Phoenician, Aramaic was the language of daily use in most of the Achaemenid empire, and remained as such until the Islamic takeover; most non-Indian scripts between Armenia and Mongolia are based on Aramaic. Cilicia, Tarsus? AR obol of Datames - Hebrew While surviving in an evolved form, "paleo" Hebrew was closely related to Aramaic Awful example, AE Prutah of Alexander Jannaeus, Hebrew between spokes of wheel - Nabatean Closely related to Hebrew was Nabatean, used in the desert trading kingdom of Nabataea, centered on Petra. Their language is now extinct, but was adopted to become Arabic. AE coin of Aretas IV & Shuqailat - Syriac and related Variants of Aramaic were also used locally in middle eastern city states. I don't have any examples, but I have seen some coins with the Edessan Estranghelo script at auctions recently. - Kharosthi Devised by Persian merchants for use in India, Kharosthi was a heavily modified Aramaic for use in transliterating Sanskrit. It was mostly used on bilingual coins, especially of the Greeks and Scythians. AR drachm of Menander - Pahlavi Although it had long been the language of the people of Persis, Pahlavi became the state language o the Sassanian empire, and was a major trade language until the rise of Arabic. It comes in two flavors Inscriptional Pahlavi on an Ardashir I drachm Book Pahlavi on a Tabaristan hemidrachm of Suleiman - Sogdian During middle antiquity to the late middle ages, Aramaic morphed into Sogdian on the Silk road. Over time, the preference shifted from horizontal to vertical writing, and Sogdian became Mongolian. Chach AE coin, unknown "Tudun" or chief
Nice review and great idea for a thread! Punic: SICILY, Entella. Punic issues c. 300-289 BCE; AR tetradrachm, 24 mm, 16.8 gm, 12h) Obv: head of Melquart-Herakles right, wearing lion skin Rev: head of horse left; astragalos (cut over poppy) to left, palm tree to right, Punic MHSBM (approximate meaning is "quaestors" or financial controllers) below Ref: Jenkins, Punic 366 (O115/R298), series 5b Ex Gorny & Mosch 138 (7 March 2005), lot 33 https://www.cointalk.com/threads/a-big-one-from-the-wish-list-siculo-punic-tetradrachm.297246/ Phoenician: PHOENICIA, Byblos. Uzzibaal c. 350-335 BCE AR dishekel, 13.3 gm Obv: Three hoplites with shields in war galley left, roaring lion's head on prow, waves below galley; hippocamp left below; Z O (N O?) in field Rev: Phoenician inscription*; lion attacking bull left Ref: SNG Copenhagen 132, BMC 26.95, 4 https://www.cointalk.com/threads/ancients-a-coin-from-the-purple-people.250752/
- Chorasmian In addition to Sogdian, the people of Khwarezm developed Aramaic into their own script AR "Tetradrachm" of Sawashfan, Sogdian on obverse, Chorasmian on reverse Greek While technically still in use, it can't be omitted! Greek evolved from Phoenician and the Minoan scripts, reaching its more or less modern form before coinage was even invented. Good ol' Alexander drachm - Lycian The people of Lycia in modern day Turkey used a heavily modified and expanded Greek to represent sounds in their language that were not supported by the Greek alphabet. It did not survive the Greek takeover under Alexander. AR tetraobol of Perikles - Runic Yep, the famous script of the Vikings was derived from Greek! Runic is not easy to find, as it was only used briefly by the Anglo-Saxons, and by a few Viking kingdoms. Narrowly missed an AR Sceat in the last CNG auction with Runic! - Bactrian While most kingdoms in India continued to use Greek long after the Indo-Greeks fizzled out, the Kushans soon found that Greek was ill-suited for their language, and developed it into Bactrian. Early forms are almost indistinguishable from Greek Kanishka tetradrachm (yes I know it's a terrible example) Later forms took on a cursive script, nearly impossible to identify as Greek to the layman Turkic huns, Vasudeva drachm, Bactrian in margins -Latin Yep, the language you are reading this in right now is just a modified Greek alphabet! (Who doesn't like Trajan's tiny verbose legends?) - Oscan Very closely related to Latin is Oscan, which I have not been able to snag an example of.
Brahmi There is pretty hot scholarly debate over whether Brahmi is an original invention, derived from the undecipheted Indus script, or from Aramaic. It first appears on coins after the breakup of the Maurya empire, then branched out after the Gupta collapse to become nearly every modern South/SE Asian script Early calligraphy, Satavahanas / anonymous Western Kshatrapas, Rudrasena III Guptas, Kumaragupta Hindu Shahis, anonymous "Spalapati Deva" Chandellas, Madanavarman
Great thread! Technically the language on Nabataean coins (and all monumental inscriptions) is a local version of Aramaic. Nabataean Arabic was a colloquial language distinct from the formal, imperial court language of Nabataean Aramaic. As Nabataean Aramaic grew to be spoken by more and more people, however, it picked up significant influences from the language of the common man. Not only did the two branches eventually feed into what is known as modern Arabic, but the Nabataean alphabet slowly morphed into modern Arabic script as well. Here is Aretas IV and Shaqilat on a year 1 drachm (9 BC), and Rabbel II and Gamilat on a year 20 drachm (AD 90). Notice the refined Hellenistic style of the earlier drachm, and the cruder yet still artistically distinctive style of the later (almost a return to archaic aesthetics)...
Great thread. I also am unfamiliar with any depiction involving hieroglyphics on coins other than the Nectanebo stater which read "good gold" Nbw-Nfr. I suppose one could make a case that the depiction of the crowns of upper and lower Egypt on Roman Egypt coins could comprise hieroglyphs, since both of these are also hieroglyphic symbols.
The mint at Siscia in the mid 4th century repeated the officina number in their own local alphabet usually following the mintmark in exergue as on this Constans workshop gamma three. Very few placed the letter large in the field as with this officina A 1.
This is a great topic and one I'm interested in. As many here know I've been heavily researching displaying ancient coin languages and learning how to read them as well. Here is a link to Ancient Coin Visual Keyboard which can be used to type out ancient scripts that are found on coins. Many are supported, most fully, some have bugs. Greek, Latin, Runic, Phoenician, Russian, Armenian, Arabic, Aramaic, Syriac, Kharosthi, Nabataean, Ancient Old South Arabian, Lycian, Lydian, Carian, Cypriote, Pahlavi and Parthian. http://www.forumancientcoins.com/ancientwhitesheet/AC-VK-Greek-Latin.html Starting with Greek, Latin, Runic and punctuation. Some alphabet tables have transliteration for easy reading. On my links page is a language section, click on the shortcut link to go right there. For a lot of reading and font support pages, Numiswiki and Wikipedia page links. http://www.forumancientcoins.com/ancientwhitesheet/links.html#LANG I haven't written a guide yet, but will in the future. Here is a progress screen shot of a Chinese keyboard I am working on.
I guess Kufic is more of an archaic style of script than a language? Anyway... Turkey (Seljuks of Rûm): silver dirham of Kaykhusraw II; lion & sun, AH 638 (1240-1241) I think this one also has Kufic script? Sicily (Norman Kings): gold tari of Guglielmo I ("William the Bad"), ca. 1154-1166 AD
Cool thread idea - how about coins that contain pseudo-scripts? The issuing authority was attempting to recreat Arabic and failing: Norman Italy - Capua Anfusus, r. 1136-1144; AE Follaro, 10.86 mm x 0.69 grams Obv.: O/A/N in left field, standing figure holding sword Rev.: Pseudo-Cufic legend, cross above and below Ref.: NCKS 14var., [MEC 14.188] (There is some question as to whether this is actually Anfusus - there may be a different issuer under different circumstances)
The first letter (the one farthest right) is an ayin which is originally a voiced pharyngeal fictive but nowadays is voiced like the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, an alef. In other words it is voiced like what you do at the beginning of the word "apple" when you constrict your throat. Sometimes in English it is portrayed by double A's. The next letter is of course a Z. These two letters have to be taken as the object of the next three which spell "bal" or more commonly "baal." This is "lord" and always comes with a geographic designator such as in this case AZ. The numerous coinage of Tarsus often has on it "BLTRZ" for baal of Tarsus, or Lord of Tarsus. Many people assume that baal is the name of a pagan diety but without the geographic designator it doesn't mean much. Thus this king is named after the lord of a certain place in the same way someone might have "St. John" as a family name. "MLK" is still a popular name for people both as surnames and family names such as the actor Rami Malek's last name. Of course it means king. Remember that Hebrew and other semitic languages for the most part have vowels that are understood and not written down. The Hebrew Bible has diacritical markings put there by the Masoretes a long time ago because it was felt that the pronunciation of Hebrew was being lost. The last work is GBL or Gebal, the name of a town we more commonly call by its Greek name Byblos. Phoenician coins are often the easiest semitic coins to translate.
Very nice coins and wonderful thread @Finn235 : OSCAN: Campania CAPUA AE 14-5mm 216-211 Hera Oscan Grain ear Hannibal capital Italia SNG Fr 517 SNG ANS 219 HN Italy 500 EE Clain Stefanelli Campania Capua 216-214 BC Æ Uncia 20.5mm 6.1g Laur hdJupiter r star value l Victory trophy star value r Monete 21 HN Italy 493 Campania CAPUA AE Uncia 216-211 BCE Diana Boar Hannibal capital Italia SCARCE Campania CAPUA AE Semuncia 216-211 BCE Juno Xoanon Hannibal capital Italia SCARCE Marsic denarius 89 BCE Bovianum-Asernia-Samnia HN Italy 407 Sear 230 SCARCE
PUNIC: Carthage Zeugitania Libyan Revolt AR Shekel 24mm 7.34g 241-238 BCE Wreathed Tanit Horse stndg control mark and Punic M SNG Cop 236 Carthage AE 31mm 220-215 BCE Second Punic War Tanit Horse Palm Pumic th SNG COP 342
My small contribution to this very interesting thread: Phoenicia - Sidon, AR double shekel. Abdarshtart III (342-332 BC), year 4. 25.34g
Great thread. I hope it is OK if I half-close a gap in the pics by posting a weight here - inscribed with Viking Runes. My own interest in this item came about due to its weight- it is enormous for a Viking cubo-octahedral - at about 292g. Also very odd because it has at some time been cut down and then very precisely recalibrated with tiny lead plugs. Actually, being a bit dumb about such things, I never noticed the possibility that there was an inscription. It was Lee Toone (Hookmore) who first spotted it - to his credit. I took it to Stockholm primarily to get a 3-D computer model made – so that the original weight of the item could be estimated. The result was c. 320 grams – suggesting that it was originally maybe a Byzantine period weight to Roman standards - before it was cut down. So far I have failed to find a tradition of Cubo-Octahedrals to Roman-Byzantine standards – so would be very grateful if anyone has thoughts on that. Anyhow, when I got it to Stockholm the researcher there immediately spotted the inscription - in Viking runes – as indeed did his supervising professor. The reading of the inscription is rather disappointing – the Viking equivalent of A, B, C…….. My best guess is that the weight was altered by a skilled craftsman in Viking times – but the guy was barely literate. He put the few characters he knew on it - merely to impress clients who were even less literate than he was. I should add that the people in Stockholm were very kind and helpful. The reason I took it to Stockholm was because two “experts” in the UK both dismissed it as “not Viking” without even looking at it. One of them coupled the comment with an extraordinary display of conceit. Its the growing trend of such ill-founded elitist attitudes within British professional archaeology which lies behind some of my other comments on this excellent group. Turning to the weight itself. 292 g is an excellent approximation of both 100 kayel dirhems, or 200 sterling pennies (they are very probably the same thing – the “esterling” penny being best explained as a half dirhem in origin). Is this a coincidence? Impossible to say for certain – but its an odd one if so….. Rob T PS - just uploaded and the pic has not been inserted - just attached. If this is how it looks to others - perhaps some kind soul will figure out what is going on and let me know off list? Thanks
Rob- I fixed your image so it would post full size. When you attach an image there is the option to select a full sized image rather than a thumbnail. Look for it next time you post an image. You'll spot it.