Overview In 1092 CE, the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus enacted sweeping coinage reforms. He stopped production of previous denominations and introduced five new ones: the gold hyperpyron (which served as the unit of account for the new money), the electrum aspron trachy, the billon (copper and silver) aspron trachy, the copper tetarteron, and the […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. The Incas had rivers full of gold and mountains full of silver, and they used gold and silver for art and for worship, but they never invented money because it was a fiction they had no use for. (Goldstein, 4) THE CLASSIC DEFINITION of money found in most Economics […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. AT THE BEGINNING of recorded history, the Iberian Peninsula was inhabited by a variety of peoples. Iberians, who spoke a non-Indo-European language that might – or might not – be related to modern Basque, lived along the Mediterranean coast. Along the Atlantic coast lived Lusitanians[1], a warlike tribe that […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. THROUGH A LONG chain of pious frauds and medieval myth-making, the February 14 feast day of St. Valentine, an obscure third-century martyr, became a day for celebrating romantic Love in Western popular culture. It may be no surprise to the reader that classical numismatics has relatively […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz …… IN 2007, CANADA captured a world record by producing five examples of a 100-kilogram gold piece (220.5 pounds, or a bit over 3215 troy ounces). It was 53 centimeters in diameter (21 inches) and three centimeters thick, denominated at one million Canadian dollars. “Why did the Royal […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. This reptile, as an image of divinity and of nature, is figured both in its natural shape, and under a variety of monstrous and imaginary forms, on a great multitude of coins of Greek cities … It is less frequently found on coins with Latin inscriptions, but still there […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. Apostate: (noun) a person who forsakes his religion, cause, party, etc.[1] REMEMBERED AS THE “Apostate” by his enemies, and “the Philosopher” by his friends, Flavius Claudius Julianus–or Julian–ruled as Roman emperor from November 3, 361 CE until his death on June 26, 363. On the list of emperors, […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. Constantine’s family was large and complex. Both he and his father had sired children with two different women, thus creating three branches [of] the Constantinian family. Most remote to Constantine was the step-family created by his father and most immediate were the two branches of direct descendants he had […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles,) who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as “Claudius the Idiot,” or “That Claudius,” or “Claudius the Stammerer,” or “Clau-Clau-Claudius,” or […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. ANCIENT ROME ISSUED coins for almost eight centuries. Among the bewildering variety of denominations that circulated during this long span of time, the quinarius stands out as one of the most obscure. Struck in both gold and silver, the type is so scarce that many experienced collectors […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. —Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (1597) ROMAN EMPERORS RARELY wore an actual crown. They are more commonly shown wearing a laurel wreath or a diadem, the jeweled headband that was an ancient emblem of royalty. But the mortality statistics […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. Don’t buy damaged coins. They will be impossible to sell. This was some of the best advice I ever got from an experienced collector of ancients. But like most things in classical numismatics, there are exceptions. Ancient coins were sometimes pierced with a hole, to be worn […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. FOR ANCIENT GREEKS and Romans, Britain was a mysterious land at the northern edge of the world. As early as 2000 BCE, the Phoenicians traded with the Celtic tribes of Cornwall (the southwestern tip of England) for the valuable tin essential to making bronze. By the third […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. For many collectors of classic and modern American coins, the only information resource they need is the old, reliable “Red Book”, which will mark its 75th anniversary in 2022. Collectors of ancient coins, however, face a problem that is considerably more complex. With thousands of types issued […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues, You can tell by the way she smiled… — Bob Dylan, “Visions of Johanna”, Blonde on Blonde (1966) ANCIENT GREEK COINS struck before 500 BCE are called “archaic” by numismatists. Actually, archaic features continue to appear on coins for […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. MUSIC IS MUCH older than civilization — it may be as old as language itself. The earliest known musical instrument, a flute made from a bear’s shinbone found in 1995 in a cave in Slovenia, dates from 43,000 years ago[1]. In the ancient world, musical instruments played […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. The coinage of Trebizond supplies an instance, not very rare in numismatics, of a currency of great abundance remaining unknown, or practically unknown, to collectors for several centuries (Wroth, lxxiv). “…the coinage of the empire of Trebizond, that Cinderella of the late Byzantine coinage (Bendall, 4).” THE SOUTHERN SHORE […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. “What was the last ancient coin?” The question is unanswerable. There was no “last” ancient coin, just as there was no “last” ancient person. Classical antiquity didn’t just stop — it morphed gradually into the medieval world, which morphed, in turn, into what we understand as the modern […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. MOST ANCIENT PEOPLE lived close to nature. Long before they built temples of stone, they worshipped their gods in sacred groves[1]. Greeks myths describe trees inhabited by supernatural spirits called dryads[2], who could take the form of beautiful young women. The ancient Mediterranean world was a much […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. ANCIENT GREEK ARMIES fought mainly with the spear. Roman legions fought mostly with the sword. Persians fought largely with the bow and arrow[1]. The mythical warrior Herakles (or Hercules) wielded a knobby wooden club. All these weapons, and many others, feature prominently on ancient coins. War was […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. STRONG, INTELLIGENT AND long-lived – yet surprisingly gentle – elephants have long exerted a powerful hold over the human imagination. Prehistoric cave paintings depict elephants and their extinct cousins, the wooly mammoth and mastodon. Ivory from elephant tusks was a precious raw material in the ancient […]
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Overview: This tetradrachm (a silver four-drachmae coin), issued around the year 2 BCE, is from the Greco-Roman city of Antioch-on-the-Orontes in what is now southern Turkey. In 31 BCE, the forces of Octavian, great-nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar, had defeated the forces of Marc Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium, one […]
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The CoinWeek Podcast is brought to you by PCGS. Check out PCGS’ new grading specials and take advantage of an exclusive offer to get a PCGS limited-edition 35th Anniversary Silver PCGS Box. You can also save money on Canadian banknote submissions and coin variety attributions. Visit pcgs.com/ccspecial to learn more. This Week, CoinWeek Ancients writer […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. Majestic, powerful, swift, and intelligent, the eagle has held a strong grip on human imagination since the earliest times. The bald eagle, native to North America, features prominently on the Great Seal of the United States, and on many classic and modern American coins. The U.S. $10 […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. Temples were designed to house a statue of the deity and store votive offerings, and were not intended to provide accommodation for a congregation of worshippers (Adkins, 218). Two of the most common circulating American coins depict buildings modeled on Greco-Roman temples: the Lincoln Memorial on the […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. THE LOMBARDS, A tribe that traced their origin to Scandinavia, migrated into Eastern Europe in the fifth century CE, earning a reputation for ferocity in that war-torn land. Under their king Alboin (reigned c. 560-572), they invaded northern Italy around 568, where their name endures today in […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. ANCIENT MAURETANIA WAS a region of coastal North Africa stretching from modern-day Algeria to Morocco. It should not be confused with the modern West African nation of Mauritania (spelled differently). The inhabitants of Mauretania were ancestors of the modern people known as Berbers[1]. The Greeks knew them […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. NORTH AFRICA IN antiquity was a greener place. Climate change and centuries of deforestation and overgrazing have caused extensive desertification of lands that once fed and sustained ancient empires. The kingdom of Numidia, which emerged in the third century BCE in parts of Tunisia and […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. …[T]he Army had become the most popular, most admired, and most respected and most influential entity in the new German Empire. …To most Germans their Army – the Emperor’s Army – represented stability as well as honor and glory (Dupuy, 110). The study of ancient coins is usually regarded […]
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In Part II of Talking Ancient Coins, collector Mike Beall sits down with CoinWeek Ancients writer Mike Markowitz to take a numismatic tour of the coins of The Bible. Discussed in this 33-minute episode are examples of coins inscribed in archaic Hebrew, the famed shekels of Tyre, coins of the Jewish War, and a pair […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. ANCIENT ROMANS WERE practical-minded people; they didn’t like wasted effort. Every letter on an ancient Roman coin die was painstakingly engraved by hand, so inscriptions on Roman coins are often heavily abbreviated. Generations of classical scholars have toiled to unravel the meaning of these cryptic abbreviations, so we can […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. FOR CENTURIES, THE narrow Strait of Messina that separates Sicily from the toe of Italy has been a crossroads of history. The town of Rhegium[1] (or Rhegion, today Reggio di Calabria) located on the Italian side of the Strait, was one of the first Greek […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. IN BIBLICAL HISTORY and popular legend, Herod “the Great”, Rome’s client king of Judaea from 40 to 4 BCE, is an evil tyrant. But ironically, the atrocity he is best remembered for–the “Massacre of the Innocents” (Matthew, 2:16–18)–probably never happened. Herod was born about 73 BCE. Herod’s wealthy father, […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. “This is a very rare coin; only two examples known! Unfortunately, the only guy in the world who cares has the other one.” — Classic Numismatic Joke (source unknown) “Unique” means one of a kind. The ultimate rarity. The rarest anything can be. This designation, […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. The extent of the Kingdom of Macedonia is as ill-defined as its history is fragmentary (Raymond, 3). ANCIENT MACEDONIANS[1] were marginal Greeks. Although permitted to compete in the Olympics, the Macedonians spoke a distinctive dialect. While their neighbors were creating novel forms of government like democracy, oligarchy and […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. Part I | Part II Antiochus V & Timarchus When Seleucid king Antiochus IV died unexpectedly in 164 BCE, he left his nine-year-old son in the care of Lysias, a trusted official. As Antiochus V, the boy’s portrait appears on the coinage[1] with the epithet Eupatoros (“son of a […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz …. And if any man will sue thee at law and take away thy coat [Greek: chiton; Latin: tunica], let him have thy cloak [Greek: himation; Latin: pallium] also. —Matthew, 5:40[1] LIVING IN A WORLD OF CHEAP, machine-made textiles, it is easy for us to forget that every […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz …. As with politicians, nothing is more important to gods than image … Perhaps this is the secret of the longevity of the God of Israel, that He never allowed an image of Himself[1]. THE OLD TESTAMENT’S STRICT PROHIBITION of idolatry inhibited the development of religious art in […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz …. He hath brought many captives home to Rome Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: — Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2 ROME LIVED BY CONQUEST. THE SPOILS of conquered territories and peoples helped to pay the expenses of the state. Mark Antony’s funeral oration […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz …. He hath brought many captives home to Rome Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: — Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2 ROME LIVED BY CONQUEST. THE SPOILS of conquered territories and peoples helped to pay the expenses of the state. Mark Antony’s funeral oration for […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek …. FOR ENGLISH SPEAKERS, THE Norman conquest of England in 1066 is one of the most memorized events in Western history. But few have ever heard of the Norman conquest of Sicily. Descendants of ferocious Vikings who settled in the French province of Normandy, the warlike Normans were eventually Christianized. […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz …. STRONG, INTELLIGENT AND LONG-LIVED – yet surprisingly gentle – elephants have long exerted a powerful hold over the human imagination. Prehistoric cave paintings depict elephants and their extinct cousins, the wooly mammoth and mastodon. Ivory from elephant tusks was a precious raw material in the ancient world […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek …. ANCIENT ROMANS KNEW even less about the prehistoric origins of their religion than we do, since we have knowledge from centuries of archaeology. Latin writers of the Classical era tried to connect their own native Italian gods to the prestigious gods of ancient Greece, with their complex genealogies […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek …. ANCIENT ROMANS KNEW even less about the prehistoric origins of their religion than we do, since we have knowledge from centuries of archaeology. Latin writers of the Classical era tried to connect their own native Italian gods to the prestigious gods of ancient Greece, with their complex genealogies and […]
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Overview: In 1092 CE the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus enacted sweeping coinage reforms. He stopped production of previous denominations and introduced five new ones: the gold hyperpyron (which served as the unit of account for the new money), the electrum aspron trachy, the billon (copper and silver) aspron trachy, the copper tetarteron, and the […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz…. THE JEBEL AKHDAR OR “GREEN MOUNTAINS” OF LIBYA stretches eastward from Benghazi for a hundred miles (160 km) along the coast. With an average annual rainfall of 15-20 inches (375-500 mm), these limestone hills are the most forested region in North Africa. In ancient times, before centuries of […]
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