Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 8090258, member: 128351&quot;]Because</p><p>1) the Athenians had on their territory silver mines in mount Laurion, just next to Cape Sounio.</p><p>2) they could mint every year huge quantities of tetradrachms called &quot;owls&quot;.</p><p>3) they also had a busy port in Piraeus and an important merchant fleet, so they could trade with all Greece and Middle East.</p><p>4) they forced their Greek allies (who could not refuse because of Athenian military supremacy) to abandon their own coinages and use only Athenian currency.</p><p>5) Egypt, who previously minted no coins of her own, adopted Athenian owls c. 400 BC and even started minting them. They were as good as the originals, in excellent silver, and very difficult to distinguish from bona fide Attic owls.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Athenian owl was a good pure silver coin, accepted everywhere from Sicily to Arabia, and available in large quantities. In the 4th c. BC it was a hard currency, &quot;the $100 note of Antiquity&quot;. Of course many crooks tried to forge fake pieces, so most of the tetradrachms found in the Middle East have test-cuts, and/or countermarks struck by bankers, with Phoenician, Arabian, Cypriot letters, even Egyptian hieroglyphs.</p><p><br /></p><p>Many other cities as far as Afghanistan or Yemen imitated Athenian coins with special marks added to claim it was their own coinage.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1405995[/ATTACH]</p><p>Counting a hoard of (mostly) Athenian tetradrachms and local imitative drachms : the first 100 tetradrachms.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1405998[/ATTACH]</p><p>Early and mid-4th century owls...</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1406001[/ATTACH]</p><p>Local imitative drachm. I like that one because of the irregular flan: the owl seems to leave the coin. Note that the imitations had the right Attic weight: 4.34 g. They could have been accepted in Athens ![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in