I was tasked to write two articles titled "Animals on coins" and "History of Dates on Coins." "Animals on coins": Composition - Talk about ancient coins that featured symbols and rulers before dates were used > first coins to have dates (Madonna & Child for example) > move to collectability of dates and key dates > new releases = excitement for collectors/stackers. "History of Dates on Coins": Composition - talk about ancient coins featuring animals and transition to modern coins that feature animals > Talk about US coins featuring mainly animals on bullion coins. Any pointers or tips in this regard will be highly appreciated. Help me to do the Ancients justice! Thanks.
As far as dates go, do you mean dates according to the Gregorian calendar or do you plan to discuss coins that include regnal years?
As for Islamic years, from the very start in the 7th century years were used following at first the Sasanic practice, and with the great coinage reform AH dates were used,as fully written-out words. That must be about 697 AD. The first use of Arabic numerals was in Norman Sicily, 12th century.
On Parthian tetradrachms, and probably other dynasties' coins as well, Seleucidic years were used. That calendar started in 313 BC.
Many animals were reproduced on Ancient Coins,most frequently horses,but also domestic animals, rare animals like turtles, elephant,lions. My favorite though is the hippopotamus and crocodiles found mostly on Egyptian coins where the animals were observed.
I am assuming from your mention of the Madonna coins that the only dates of interest are AD so any comments I have would be useless but if you are interested in such things as ancient systems, I would show a Parthian with month and year dating and a Roman Provincial with more than one system used on the same coin (e.g. Nero with both his regnal year and year of Caesarean era). There is a Roman coin dated to year of the city but it is very rare (1001 AUC by Pacatian). There have been many threads here on CT on various animals from insects to elephants. I would search the back CT posts.
Who are you writing the articles for? If it is a coin club with no ancients collectors? If so, I would just put in a quick blerb about ancient dating systems like regnal years, Seleucid era, Pompeian, or something like that... with and example of each.
You probably think of the Seljuq of Rum dirhems of 622H (1225). But there's also a Norman-Arabic coin from Sicily, issued by King Roger II. Mine is from AH 540 = AD 1146.
Thank you. I will have to give it some food for thought. Given space constraints, I will most likely give the different ancient systems a short mention, but will probably focus predominantly on AD.
Thank you for all the great input received so far. It is highly appreciated. P.S. Sorry for not making use of multi quotes. I will try to do so in future.
