By David Hendin for CoinWeek ….. The cross has been the most recognizable symbol of Christianity for more than 1,600 years. But this was not the case in the first few hundred years after Jesus died. When Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem between around 30 and 33 CE (the exact year is not known), he […]
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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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By Hubert Walker for CoinWeek …. As reported by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) earlier this month, in February a group of boys on a school field trip discovered an almost 1,600-year-old gold coin from the Byzantine Empire in a park just north of Nazareth in the region of Galilee. Minted in the Byzantine capital […]
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Reverse types of the Late Roman Empire are remarkably varied, with military and religious types being the most abundant By Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC) …… Click Here for Part I In the previous column, we examined some of the familiar reverse types associated with Roman military life and the vows undertaken by emperors. In […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series on Ancient Counterfeiters by Mike Markowitz …. Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur “The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.” — attributed to Petronius, 1st-century Roman satirist AROUND 650 BCE, on the eastern shore of the Aegean Sea, coinage was invented. Very soon afterward, Ancient Counterfeiters and their counterfeit […]
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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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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek …. Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity. Use honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah and an honest hin[1]. — Leviticus, 19:35-36 PEOPLE ARE NOT VERY GOOD AT estimating or comparing weight. Before the rise of market economies, people measured commodities mainly by […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz …. FOR MUCH OF HUMAN HISTORY, WARFARE has absorbed our resources, energy and creativity. War is much older than coinage. One of the earliest images of war in Western art is the “Battlefield Palette”, a carved slate from pre-Dynastic Egypt dated c. 3100 BCE[1]. It depicts the aftermath […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz…. Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur “The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.” — attributed to Petronius, 1st-century Roman satirist AROUND 650 BCE, on the eastern shore of the Aegean Sea, coinage was invented. Very soon afterward, counterfeit coinage appeared, and it has been with […]
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