Category Archives: drachms

Hera on Ancient Coins – Queen of the Gods

CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. I sing of golden-throned Hera whom Rhea bare. Queen of the immortals is she, surpassing all in beauty: she is the sister and the wife of loud-thundering Zeus, —the glorious one whom all the blessed throughout high Olympus reverence and honour even as Zeus who delights in […]

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Coins of the Dorian Cities of Rhodes

By Dr. Steve Benner for CoinWeek ….. Doris was a small region on the southwest coast of Asia Minor (see Figure 1), which later became a part of Caria. It was settled by the Dorians at the end of the Bronze Age (3300-1200 BCE) and was probably part of the Sea Peoples’ invasions of the […]

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Ancient Greek Coins of Aiolis: The Minor Cities

By Steve Benner for CoinWeek ….. The previous article that I wrote on Aiolis covered the larger commercial cities of Aigai, Cyme, and Myrina. I singled them out because these cities produced stephanophoric tetradrachms in the mid-second century BCE. This article covers the rest of the cities in Aiolis, which is a small region on […]

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Ancient Greek Coins of Aiolis: Aigai, Cyme and Myrina

By Steve Benner for CoinWeek ….. Aiolis was a small region on the west coast of Asia Minor (see Figure 1). It was surrounded by Lydia to the east, Mysia to the north, Ionia to the south, and the Aegean Sea to the west. Its northern part was opposite the island of Lesbos, and its […]

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The Coins of Carthage During Hannibal’s War With Rome

By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. BORN IN 247 BCE at Carthage (near modern Tunis in North Africa), Hannibal Barca[1] is remembered as one of the greatest military commanders of ancient history. His father, Hamilcar Barca[2] (lived 275-228 BCE), led Carthaginian forces in Sicily during the 23 year-long First Punic War, defeating a revolt by […]

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The Coins of Carthage During Hannibal’s War With Rome

By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek …..   BORN IN 247 BCE at Carthage (near modern Tunis in North Africa), Hannibal Barca[1] is remembered as one of the greatest military commanders of ancient history. His father, Hamilcar Barca[2] (lived 275-228 BCE), led Carthaginian forces in Sicily during the 23 year-long First Punic War, defeating a revolt […]

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Coins of Ancient Greek Pamphylia

By Steve Benner for CoinWeek …..   Pamphylia was not a country unto itself but a region. It is located on the southern coast of Asia Minor (Modern Turkey) surrounded by Lycia to the west, Cilicia to the east, and Pisidia to the north. In ancient Greek, Pamphylia meant “of mingled tribes or races”, and […]

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Coins of Ancient Greek Troas (Troad): Part 2

By Steve Benner for CoinWeek ….. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 * * * This article is the second part on the coinage of Troas, a region of northwest Asia Minor adjacent to the Hellespont. Its history goes back to the Bronze Age and the Hittites, and Troy (Ilium), […]

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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series: Coins of the Celtiberians

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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Snakes on Ancient Coins

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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Sassanian Silver Drachms

By Michael T. Shutterly for CoinWeek ….. Ardashir V, King of Persis, defeated Artabanus IV, the last Shahanshah (“King of Kings”) of Parthia, at the Battle of Hormozdgan in 224 CE. Persis was located in what is now southwestern Iran, while Parthia was located primarily in what is now northeastern Iran; both kingdoms were once […]

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The Coins of Ancient Rhodes

By Tyler Rossi for CoinWeek ….. Situated on an important trade route between the Greek mainland and Ionian colonies in Turkey, the island of Rhodes slowly became one of the most powerful maritime powers in the ancient Mediterranean. Most of the islands’ inhabitants lived in three cities: Ialysos, Kamiros, and Lindos. All three polities started […]

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The Ancient Greek Coins of Paeonia

By Steve Benner for CoinWeek ….. I consider myself well-read in ancient Greek history, but I have to admit that I wasn’t very familiar with Paeonia. I actually own a very nice Patraus tetradrachm, which probably triggered my interest in looking deeper into their history. The Paeonians were said to have derived their name from […]

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The Hole Truth: Ancient Coins That Were Pierced

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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NGC Ancients – Coinage of Larissa

Coins of the Greek city of Larissa are among the most beautiful of the ancient world   By Numismatic Guaranty Company (NGC) …… Located in central Greece, the site of Larissa has been inhabited for thousands of years. Through much of this time, it has been one of the most important cities in the region […]

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The Archaic Smile on Ancient Coins

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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Temples on Ancient Coins

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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The Mystery of the Double-Headed Coins of Ancient Istros

By Tyler Rossi for CoinWeek ….. Istros, also known as Histria, was an ancient Greek colony located on the western Dobrudja coast of the Black Sea. Situated approximately 300 miles north of Byzantium, this small city was founded by Miletian traders around 657 or 656 BCE. As the oldest Greek colony on the Black Sea, […]

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Uncirculated Ancient Silver Coins for Under $1,000

By Tyler Rossi for CoinWeek ….. As a collector, you have many different options when deciding on your collecting strategy. And while everyone starts in a different place, most run into the two main questions of quality or price. But it is important to realize that there are no correct answers to these questions, and […]

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Panticapaeum: Ancient Greek Coins of the Black Sea’s Northern Coast

By Steve Benner for CoinWeek ….. This is the last article in a series on the Greek colonies on the northern coast of the Black Sea (Euxine Sea). The first article was on Olbia; the second was on Tyras and Chersonesus; the third covers the cities of Theodosia, Gorgippia, and Phanagoria in the Cimmerian Bosporos. […]

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Images and Symbols of Egyptian Gods on Ancient Coins

By Austin Andrews for American Numismatic Society (ANS) …… With its range of hawk-headed and half-mummified deities, the Egyptian pantheon has inspired devotion and intrigue for millennia. Egyptians were drawing, painting, and carving images of their gods well before the first pharaohs, over five thousand years ago. While coined money was not a regular part […]

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Images and Symbols of Egyptian Gods on Ancient Coins

By Austin Andrews for American Numismatic Society (ANS) ……   With its range of hawk-headed and half-mummified deities, the Egyptian pantheon has inspired devotion and intrigue for millennia. Egyptians were drawing, painting, and carving images of their gods well before the first pharaohs, over five thousand years ago. While coined money was not a regular […]

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Greek Influences on Early Iberian Coins: Catawiki

By Catawiki …… The Iberian Peninsula is located at the western end of the Mediterranean Sea. In the late Bronze Age (early first millennium BCE) and early Iron Age (seventh century BCE), it was inhabited by various peoples who had different social, religious, and cultural structures. Broadly speaking, the northwestern and central-eastern parts were influenced […]

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Ancient Greek Coins: Archaic to Classical

By Tyler Rossi for CoinWeek ….. Archaic Greece, born out of the ruins of the Bronze Age Mycenaean culture, quickly began to dominate the eastern Mediterranean Sea. For roughly three hundred years after that great Mediterranean power–centered on the city of Mycenae but with trading cities throughout the Peloponnese and Asia Minor–violently collapsed, Greece descended […]

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Ancient Coins – A Soldier’s Share of Alexander the Great’s Plunder

Ancient Coins By Russell A. Augustin, AU Capital Management, LLC …… Alexander the Great, born in the autumn of 356 BCE and taught by the famous Aristotle, was one of the most successful military generals of all time, conquering a large part of Asia and ruling a kingdom that spanned from the Ionian sea to […]

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Athens Before the Owls: The Wappenmünzen Coins – CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series

By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. Thanks to rich silver deposits discovered at Laurion[1] in Attica in 483 BCE, the abundant “owl” tetradrachms of Athens became the dominant trade coin in the ancient world for over a century. But the Athenians had issued a variety of silver coins beginning around the year 560 BCE during […]

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Sea Creatures on Ancient Coins

CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek …..   ANCIENT PEOPLE WHO lived around the shores of the Mediterranean were intimately familiar with the marine life around them. Fish were a critical resource for these societies, figuring prominently in their culture, art, and mythology from very early times. When coinage came into wide […]

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NGC Ancients: Silver Coin “Pocket Change” of Central Greece

Interesting silver coins from Central Greece are available for modest prices   By Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC) …… One popular area for ancient Greek coinage is central Greece, home to a number of important cities, notably Athens. From the sixth century BCE onward, a great variety of coins were struck there, principally in silver and […]

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Ancient Coins – A Soldier’s Share of Alexander the Great’s Plunder

By Russell A. Augustin, AU Capital Management, LLC …… Alexander the Great, born in the autumn of 356 BCE and taught by the famous Aristotle, was one of the most successful military generals of all time, conquering a large part of Asia and ruling a kingdom that spanned from the Ionian sea to the Himalayas […]

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NGC Ancients – Roman Provincial Coin Portraits

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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NGC Ancients: Sea Creatures on Greek Coins

An ancient people’s reliance on the sea is reflected in money Finely engraved images of animals and mythic creatures are commonplace on ancient Greek coins. The spectrum is incredible, ranging from imaginary creatures to the kinds of animals the ancients encountered in everyday life. Among the most frequently shown are aquatic creatures. This is hardly […]

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Ancient Coins – A Soldier’s Share of Alexander the Great’s Plunder

By Russell A. Augustin, AU Capital Management, LLC…. Alexander the Great, born in the autumn of 356 BCE and taught by the famous Aristotle, was one of the most successful military generals of all time, conquering a large part of Asia and ruling a kingdom that spanned from the Ionian sea to the Himalayas before […]

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Ancient Coins – A Soldier’s Share of Alexander the Great’s Plunder

  By Russell A. Augustin, AU Capital Management, LLC…. Alexander the Great, born in the autumn of 356 BC and taught by the famous Aristotle, was one of the most successful military generals of all time, conquering a large part of Asia and ruling a kingdom that spanned from the Ionian sea to the Himalayas […]

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