Hello all, I was going through coins that I saved from my travel, and yes, I am a little bit of a conspiracy theorist, but that aside, I'd like to get some views on what the significance of twelve on coins are. Twelve stars and lines on the Euro, twelve pillars on the cent, twelve strings in the harp of the Israeli 1/2 Sheqel coin, and twelve lines on the 10 Israeli coin (nine on the outer rim and 3 on the inner circle.
Um... You have really good eyesight and too much free time? I'm kidding. Twelve is just one of those magical numbers. There were twelve disciples, twelve in a dozen (unless you're talking donuts) and twelve dozen in a gross (unless you're talking a George Clooney movie. No dozens there, just gross.) and twelve months in our calendar year.
The 12 stars in the Euro coins represent the 12 main countries of the Euro zone. There are many other uses of 12; 12 hours, 12 zodiac signs, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 inches in a foot. And of course: twelve pence in a shilling
And 12 is evenly divisible by a lot of numbers: 2, 3, 4, 6 (and 1 and 12, but that's obvious). 60 is another number like that.
Errm, no. The 12 stars are the Stars of Europe, used by both the Council of Europe and the European Union (which are two different entities). http://europa.eu/abc/symbols/emblem/index_en.htm The euro area, or euro zone if you prefer, had 11 members when it started in 1999, and today has 16 members, but that will of course not influence the number of the stars. Christian
And that is the real reason. No one wants to use 13, so they just use 12 instead and stop there. Lots of buildings do not have a 13th floor you know. And remember there really isn't a lot of room on coins so if someone tried to put, say 50 to represent all the states, there would be no room for anything else.
