Ancients => Hey, how 'bout postin' your "2" favourite Gods(ess) and/or Deities

Not to easy to pick

Apollo, Helios, Athena.

 

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OK. I'll retract the Helios coin and replace it with this one. It depicts the hand of God on the reverse.


Constantine The Great
MANVS DEI The Hand of God
AE 3, Reduced Folis
337-340 A.D.

1.72 grams, 15 mm
Obv: DV CONSTANTINVS PT AVGG, Veiled bust of Constantine I to right
Rev: Emperor in quadriga right, hand of god reaches him from above, star above, SMANS in exergue.
Grade: gVF coin with dark brown patina. Well centered, well struck, and includes all legends.
Other: Antioch mint, RIC 37.Constantine “The Great” Posthumous issue.
"MANVS DEI" the Hand of God. Superb condition & rarely this nice.
Constantine I is depicted in a burial shroud. The Christian is called DV (Divus = the divine one) and shown being welcomed to heaven by God. This coin was minted after Constantine’s death. The obverse depicts the Emperor in a burial shroud and on the reverse the Emperor driving an ascending (Heaven Bound) quadriga to the Judeo-Christian God's waiting hand. The coin also represents the first Judeo-Christian imagery on a coin. Full legend examples are not easily found since the mints of the day were striking very rapidly due to the need for cash to fuel inflation.

This last image does not look like the coin in-hand. However, the photo does make it easier to see several details of the coin's design.

 

Why? Believe or don't believe, He is considered a God by many. Byzantine coins depicting Jesus would fall into this thread's category IMHO.

 

I'm not disputing that, I just feel that we should avoid posting them in order to circumvent potential flame wars.

 

I may not be the most religious person around, but I haven't seen any content in this thread that could offend anybody. I think your overreacting a bit. We are not discussing any religion itself here, or what's right or wrong. Also by bringing this up, you probably opened up a can of worms that could lead to a flame war.

 

Agreed.

 

My intent was not to do any "hand slapping", I only think we should be careful. I've seen smaller matters explode in Coin Chat, so I think that we should err on the side of caution with these things. My apologizes for not being clear enough.

Best point I've heard all day.

Whoops...

 

Don't worry, if and when something happens that's when it will get dealt with. And I'm sure the mods will do a fine job with that.

 

Mods? Where?

 

Yeah, exactly.

 

Turn around


Just jokes bing

 

Sssssslender...

 

Flame war...sorry I couldn't help myself...

 

=> I like the blonde-dude with the flame-thrower, lookin' back at his buddy and gigglin' ...

 

At the risk of starting a flame war I'll point out that I consider the Titans to be gods. They were the set of deities that were defeated by the Olympians. Most significant among them was Kronos which the Romans called Saturn. There have been several works of literature dealing with the struggle between the Titans and the Olympians including Hesiod and the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. Whenever we are discussing mythology or religion we risk upsetting someone who has a strong opinion on the matter. There are relatively few people today who are dedicated believers in Zeus, Kronos and Uranus (also a god and father of Kronos) so you probably won't get flack for disrespecting them but that same opinion would have got you thrown to the lions once upon a time. The difference between mythology and religion depends on whether you believe in the subject or not. Not all Romans believed in a tangible Jupiter but relatively few expressed that opinion when running for public office.

I know that there will be those of you who do not consider Rick Riordan to be mythology but his books are not any further removed from the last of the ancients who wrote mythology than those writers were from the first tales of the gods that formed what we consider to be 'proper' mythology.

I am unaware of coins of Uranus, Aither, Erebus or Chaos and the details about who thee guys were or who made them up is flame fodder for more than a few millennia ago. We do have coins of Saturn.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(mythology)

 

No sooner than I posted what I considered an acceptable Saturn (whether you consider him a god or not) I got a nicer example. I don't always upgrade coins just to get a better coin but this is my best Saturn and I considered him special because of how few appearances he made on coins. I am unclear on how the mindset works here. I would think that a real believer in Jupiter might be concerned that he might be offended by a coin honoring the guy (even though he was his father) he defeated to become top deity in the Roman pantheon. Most ancient deities allowed or even expected the belief in other gods but I found it interesting that this would extend to showing the old system god on coins. This version of Saturn is unusual in that it is not just a head/portrait but that it shows prominently the sickle. Gaia, his wife, shaped a great flint-bladed sickle and asked her sons to castrate Uranus. I suspect either she was tired to bearing so many children or, perhaps he had been spending too much on his hobby. Cronos (Saturn in Greek) complied. I also find it interesting that this father cutter was honored by Gallienus who is not known to have made any effort to free his own father from his Persian captivity. It is probably not appropriate to suggest that there was any connection between the Saturn and the Gallienus examples of honoring your father.

The coin was from eBay. Thank you for not bidding.

 

Very cool, Doug (congrats) => yah, Saturn is very cool ...

sadly, I'm pretty sure that my only Saturn example is my Roman Republic Ae Semis (which you informed me ... originally, I though it was Jupiter)

regardless => super-cool coin, my super-cool coin-buddy!!

 

oh ... and here is good ol' Saturn ...