Ancient Coin Program at VNA coin show

Today I presented a short overview on ancient coins as one of the educational programs at the Virginia Numismatic Association Convention. Four people attended. Just in case there is more interest somewhere too far to drive to Richmond, I'll post it here:

Ancient Coins:
For the first two thousand years that mankind used money as a tool of trade, coins were made without the help of modern machines. Production of these hand made pieces of metal was hard work and many things we take for granted about coins were only slowly invented. The idea of coinage spread across Europe and Asia from three separate places of origin. Our program today will examine a few of the (literally!) millions of coin types that supported trade across the known world.

 

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Three answers for one question:

In the Eastern Mediterranean in what is today Western Turkey, Greek speaking city-states started trading lumps of a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver called electrum. When someone (probably in the early 6th century BC) started certifying these lumps by impressing them with a design, ancient coins were born. The design was cut in reverse in a die which was struck with a hammer producing the coin. Shortly afterward coins appeared in pure gold and pure silver rather than the mixture. Our example (left) from around 500 BC is a silver stater of the island state Aigina and was struck with the city badge – a sea turtle. The idea of a second design for the reverse was not used everywhere at first but this coin has a decorative punch. Coins of this early style are termed ‘Archaic’.

Around the same time in India pieces of silver were certified by stamps of various types often with several different ones overlapping on one irregular shape of silver cut to weight. These continued to be produced until after contact with Greek culture (including the invasion of Alexander the Great) gradually introduced more Western style struck coins. Our example is late in the period of the punchmarked coins, Mauryan India (Samprati, 216-207 BC).

The third birthplace of coinage was ancient China. After centuries of experiments with cast bronze forms like knives that did not cut and spades that did not dig, they settled on round coins with a square hole allowing hundreds to be strung together for easy handling. Chinese coins were cast with the design rather than being struck with dies until well after the start of modern history when machine made coins were made still with the square hole. My example reads Yi Tao (one knife) and dates to about 300BC.

While the last two origins shown here are available to collectors today, the rest of my program will be concerned with the development of struck coinage of the Greek model.

 

Athenian Obol

Athens, the capital of the modern country of Greece always was an important center of Greek culture in antiquity. This small (.7g) silver obol from the early 5th century BC shows an early use of a reverse die punch adding an owl (the city badge) to the head of Athena (the namesake goddess). Modern collectors prefer the more common and much larger silver tetradrachms but many cities issued coins in a wide range of denominations down to some weighing under a tenth of a gram. This little coin bears the legend naming its city.

 

Classical Greek Corinthian Stater

While Athens was important, a thousand other jurisdictions issued coins. Here we see Pegasus and Athena as honored on a silver stater of Corinth in the 4th century BC. Its more refined art places this coin in our program as an example of the ‘Classical’ style.

 

Greek Bronze - Akragas

When the Greeks realized the impracticality of the tiny silver coins they had been using, small denominations were replaced by bronze coins which could be larger but not worth too much for daily use. Our example from the Greek colony at Akragas, Sicily, (in the 3rd century BC) also demonstrates that Greek culture existed in most of the Mediterranean, not just in the area called Greece today. Not all places made the switch from one metal to two (or three with gold) at the same time. Each city was independent and coins were made to meet local needs.

 

Hellenistic Period – Ptolemy I

Time prevents us showing every stop in the history of Greek coinage. The great military leader Alexander the Great died in 323 BC and his empire was divided up by his generals beginning what we term the Hellenistic period. This silver tetradrachm shows a portrait of Ptolemy I whose share of the pie was Egypt. Descendants of each of these generals ruled their regions until they fell to a new power in the Mediterranean: Rome.

 

Roman Republican Denarius

Roman power arose in central Italy and spread throughout the Mediterranean world. Early Roman coins were issued by moneyers who were allowed to select designs honoring members of their family. This silver denarius came from an official who claimed decent from the shepherd Faustulus who had discovered the infants Romulus and Remus being cared for by a wolf over 600 years before the coin was made c.137 BC. The office of moneyer changed every year resulting in many very interesting coins from the Roman Republic.

 

Roman Imperatorial Denarius – Antony

[FONT=&quot]The end of the Republic brought in a period of civil wars between strongmen you may have studied in school. Pompey, Caesar, and Octavian all issued coins that collectors call ‘Imperatorial’. Our example is a silver denarius of Mark Antony made to pay the large navy he formed with the last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, the famous Cleopatra VII. Our example is quite worn because the silver used for this issue was considerably more base than most denarii so people spent them rather than saving them in their hoards. Coins of this type turn up in finds deposited over 200 years after they were made.
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Roman Empire - Nero

When the wars ended, Caesar Augustus remained in sole power and became the first Roman Emperor. He and each succeeding Emperor issued different types of their choice in a variety of denominations – far too many to show properly today. Our example of a Roman Imperial coin is a bronze As of Nero struck in 65 AD on the rare occasion when the doors to the Temple of Janus were closed as a sign of universal peace. The coin shows the temple with encircling legend: ‘Peace for the People of Rome being Everywhere, the Doors of Janus are Closed’.

 

Late Roman – Constantine the Great

Nero is credited with starting the persecution of the new religious sect called the Christians. Our next coin shows Constantine I who was the first Emperor to become a Christian. Constantine was not baptized until just before his death and never showed Christian types on his coins. That was left to his successors. Our example struck by his sons shows the divine Constantine in his chariot being welcomed to heaven by the Hand of God.

 

Gold

Gold coins exist for many periods of antiquity but many are well beyond the price bracket of most collectors. An exception is found in the late Roman period when millions were minted. Theodosius II paid 2100 Roman pounds of gold (over 150,000 coins this size) to the Huns in 443 AD. Was this coin part of that amount?

 

Byzantine - Justinian

Rome may have fallen in the West but it continued in the East centered on the new capitol Constantinople built on the site of the ancient city Byzantium. The thousand years when Roman culture hung on in the East is termed the Byzantine era. Inflation had diminished nice coins of good silver content into small scraps of copper. Coinage reforms introduced new denominations including this 40 nummi piece of Justinian I dated to 544AD (year 18) and mintmarked Constantinople.

 

Roman Colonial – Gordian III

Now we must back up a few centuries. While Roman Imperial coins were good across most of the Empire, local authorities were allowed to produce coins, mostly bronzes, for local circulation. Usually they showed the Emperor’s portrait coupled with a reverse of local interest. Legends were usually in Greek but honored colonies were allowed to use Latin. Our example shows Emperor Gordian III (238-244 AD) face to face with the god Serapis and the Great Mother goddess Cybele as issued in Marcianopolis, Thrace (now in Bulgaria). There are thousands upon thousands of varieties of these ‘Greek Imperial’ or ‘Roman Provincial’ coins. The two terms are interchangeable.

 

Enemies

“History is written by the victors” or so goes the old saying. Coins exist from cultures that bordered, aligned with and fought the Greeks and Romans. On the left is a siglos of the Persian Empire, enemies of the Greeks in the 5th century BC. In the center is Sasanian king Shapur I who in the 3rd century AD captured the Roman Emperor Valerian I and used him as a footstool. On the right is a coin of Hārūn al-Rashīd from c.800 AD famous as the Bagdad Sultan in the 1001 Nights/Scheherazade story and who exchanged gifts with Charlemagne, the king of France.

 

Medieval and early modern Europe

Coinage continued in Europe through the Dark Ages and into the Medieval and early Modern eras until the invention of coin pressing machines ended the hand made, struck coinage that is the subject of today’s program. Our example is a silver groat (2d) of English king Henry VIII struck after 1532 AD which would be considered by many collectors to be too new to show in this program. After all it is over 2100 years newer that the first coin we showed and not quite 500 years old yet. We each must decide what is collectible and what is not.

 

Other places

If we have not yet covered coins you might find interesting, fear not there are many more. How many of you know of Aksum (left - in sub-Saharan Africa) where a tiny spot of gold was included in a larger copper 'carrier' coin. Do you know of Chach (left center - now in Uzbekistan)? Perhaps you would like a coin (right center) of the c. 1200 AD queen of Kashmir, Didda Rani or (right) the c.1400 AD dynasty of Mongol conqueror Tamerlane? Did I leave out your favorite? For every civilization you may know there are still others you may want to meet.

 

Permission is given to any Non-Profit coin club to use this program at any meeting or show for which admission is not charged. It is also free for use by any school, scout troop, church group or history club again on the condition that no admission be charged. If anyone does make use of it, I would appreciate a note telling me if you have more than four people show up.

 

How much would this coin be worth? I don't see this coin for sale very often and wondered about it's value.

 

Excellet post Doug! Thanks

 

Awesome post doug.