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 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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By Steve Benner for CoinWeek ….. The coinage of the ancient Romans underwent considerable changes as the government transitioned from a republic to an empire. Some coins like the denarius would continue through the imperatorial period into the Empire only slightly reduced in weight. Some would disappear, like the victoriatus. And some, like the sestertius, […]
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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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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek …. THE RICH VOCABULARY OF NUMISMATICS has many terms to describe the things we see on coins. When a coin depicts two heads side by side, the usual description is “jugate busts”. The word derives from the Latin iuga, meaning “yoke”. Think of a pair of oxen yoked together. Jugate […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek…. NOW AND THEN IN HISTORY, economic, political and social forces come together in just the right combination to make a particular city the dynamic locus of cultural creativity. We see this in Athens in the time of Pericles (c. 495 – 429 BCE), Florence during the Renaissance (c. 1350 – 1450 […]
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