Transcript Ancient Coin Project - Lexington Catholic High School

Photo by Doug Smith; http://dougsmith.ancients.info/
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 I
Evolution of Coins
Money
Latin:
pecunia, pecuniae, f.
“money”
pecus, pecoris, n.
“herd, cattle, beast”
Greek:
chremata, chrematon,
n.pl.
“possessions,
belongings”
Animals and Products as Forms of Money
Advantages?
Disadvantages?
Metals as Prize Money
Bronze
cauldron
tripods,
Olympia,
6th c. BC.
Top
relief is handle
of a cauldron.
Copper pots first prize for wrestlers, Homer’s Iliad
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
Folding scales:
Left of wood and
Right of ivory
Stone weights and scale pans
Egyptian wall painting, tomb at Thebes, 14thc. B.C.
Scales Always Associated with Money and Justice
--ANA Museum, Colorado Springs
--Seal of Treasury, U.S. Mint
--Juno Moneta holding scales
on reverse of coin minted by
Constantius as Caesar
Earliest Coins of the Mediterranean
--approximately 650 B.C. in Lydia
--made of electrum, natural alloy of gold and silver
King Ardys (652-615 B.C.)
---lump with incuse obverse
King 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%
Lydian coin,
minted under Croesus,
561-546 B.C.
Gold stater, foreparts of
lion and bull
ANA Museum
Early Greek Coins
Silver turtle coins from Greek island
Aegina, 500 – 480 BCE
Arethusa with dolphins; quadriga and
Charioteer; Sicily, Syracuse, 485-480,
silver tetradrachm
Ear of barley, incuse bucranium
Lucania, Metapontium, 470-440,
silver triobol
Athena owl coin, Athens, 449-431 BC;
silver tetradrachm
Challenges of
Bullion
Coinage
Athenian
Tetradrachma:
coin clipped
to create smaller
denominations
Challenges of
Bullion Coinage
Top: Aeginetan
Coinage, relative
Denominations
Left: Lydian coinage
Tiny Coins
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