Ancient Coin Project
created by Latin teacher Cathy Scaife for Ancient Coins for Education
classroom attribution project.
Photo by Doug Smith; http://dougsmith.ancients.info/
Ancient Coin Project
Part IEvolution of Coins
Photo by Doug Smith; http://dougsmith.ancients.info/
Greek:chremata, chrematon, n.pl.“possessions, belongings”
Latin: pecunia, pecuniae, f. “money”pecus, pecoris, n.“herd, cattle, beast”
Money
Animals and Products as Forms of Money
Advantages?
Disadvantages?
Metals as Prize Money
Copper pots first prize for wrestlers, Homer’s Iliad
Bronze cauldrontripods, Olympia, 6th c. BC. Toprelief is handle of a cauldron.
Metals as Valued Possessions
Metal as a Medium for Exchange
Metal in Measured Forms
Greek obols
Bronze Ingots
Silver Ingots(in pots in which hoard was
buried)
Scales and Weights
Egyptian wall painting, tomb at Thebes, 14thc. B.C.
Folding scales:Left of wood and Right of ivory
Stone weights and scale pans
--ANA Museum, Colorado Springs
--Seal of Treasury, U.S. Mint
--Juno Moneta holding scaleson reverse of coin minted by Constantius as Caesar
Scales Always Associated with Money and Justice
Earliest Coins of the Mediterranean
--approximately 650 B.C. in Lydia--made of electrum, natural alloy of gold and silver
Lydian coin, minted under Croesus, 561-546 B.C.Gold stater, foreparts of lion and bullANA Museum
King Ardys (652-615 B.C.)---lump with incuse obverseKing Alyattes (610-561 B.C.)---stater had established weight of 168 grains---fractional denominations---reverse die (intaglio)King Croesus (561-546 B.C.)---bimetallic coinage---gold content 98%
Early Greek Coins
Silver turtle coins from Greek island Aegina, 500 – 480 BCE
Ear of barley, incuse bucraniumLucania, Metapontium, 470-440,silver triobol
Arethusa with dolphins; quadriga and Charioteer; Sicily, Syracuse, 485-480, silver tetradrachm
Athena owl coin, Athens, 449-431 BC; silver tetradrachm
Athenian Tetradrachma:
coin clippedto create smallerdenominations
Challenges of BullionCoinage
Tiny Coins
Top: AeginetanCoinage, relative Denominations
Left: Lydian coinage
Challenges of Bullion Coinage
Intrinsic Value(metallic value roughly equal to tariff
value)
vs.Token (Fiduciary)
Value(intrinsic value less than tariff value)
Image Sources
• Meshorer, Ya’akov. Coins of the Ancient World. Lerner Archaeology Series: Digging Up the Past. (Lerner Publications Company, Minneapolis, 1980).
• Russell, Solveig Paulson. From Barter to Gold: The Story of Money. (Rand McNally & Company, Chicago, 1961).
• Website by Doug Smith. http://dougsmith.ancients.info/• Website, American Numismatic Museum. www.money.org• Other coin images donated by supporters of Ancient Coins
for Education as listed at http://www.bitsofhistory.comace/CI.html
