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