By Lucia Carbone for American Numismatic Society (ANS) …… Caesar was exceedingly fond of his sister, who was, as the saying is, a wonder of a woman. -Plutarch, Life of Antony 31.1 Roman women, especially if they were members of the upper class, acquired increased visibility in the last decades of the Roman Republic, […]
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By Michael T. Shutterly for CoinWeek ….. The first coins to be struck appeared c. 650 BCE in what is now western Turkey. These coins were little more than blobs of electrum; what made these blobs “coins” rather than “bullion” is that they were cast to fit precisely within a measured system of weights and […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. Perhaps one reason for the comparatively small interest in Greek coins in the country is the difficulty of understanding their inscriptions. This difficulty is not as great as might be supposed… (Pennington, 1) MODERN AMERICAN COINS are required by law to include quite a lot of text[1]. For example, […]
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Portraits on Roman provincial coins range from crude to skillfully engraved Roman provincial coins–those struck outside of Italy, in the provinces of Rome–are among the most fascinating of all ancient coins. They often have intriguing designs and bear portraits of great interest. The die engraving on provincial coins varies incredibly, from cartoonish efforts to artistic […]
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Many clues help narrow down the date ranges of coins minted more than 2,000 years ago At NGC Ancients, often we are asked: How do we know when an ancient coin was struck? This is a fundamental question for ancient Greek coins, on par with identifying who issued a coin. For many coins, it is […]
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