Category Archives: Heraclius

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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Ancient Gold Coin Hoard Pinpoints Persian Destruction of Jerusalem

By David Hendin for CoinWeek ….. If a hoard of 264 Byzantine gold solidi suddenly appeared and careful examination showed that every coin in the hoard was struck from the SAME dies–a die set never before identified–experts would be quick to suggest the possibility of forgery. (Photo 1) Real life, however, can be stranger than […]

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Crown of Iron: Coins of the Lombard Kings

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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The Changing Iconography of Byzantine Gold Coins

  By Elena Stolyarik for American Numismatic Society (ANS) …… The Byzantine Empire, which lasted more than a thousand years, had one of the most monetized economies in medieval Europe. The coinage of Byzantium was an essential element of this unique civilization, which preserved Roman law and state structures and inherited not only the Hellenistic […]

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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series – Ravenna: From Imperial Capital to Byzantine Outpost

By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. …the sick promenade while the doctors lie abed, the baths freeze while the houses burn, the living are thirsty while the buried swim, thieves are vigilant while the authorities sleep, the clergy lend money while the Syrian merchants sing psalms… (Deliyannis, 50) —Sidonius Apollinaris (c. 430-489 describing Ravenna as […]

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NGC Ancients – Collecting Byzantine Coins on a Budget

Excellent examples of Byzantine coins are easily affordable   By Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC) …… As we discovered in the previous two columns, the fields of ancient Greek and Roman coins provide the budget-minded collector with opportunities perhaps unequaled in any other area of numismatics. This month we’ll continue the discovery with Byzantine coins, which […]

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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series – Heraclius: The Greatest Emperor You’ve Never Heard of

CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series  by Mike Markowitz ….. Of the characters conspicuous in history, that of Heraclius is one of the most extraordinary and inconsistent. In the first and last years of a long reign, the emperor appears to be the slave of sloth, of pleasure, or of superstition, the careless and impotent spectator of the public […]

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NGC Ancients: A Guide to Bronze Byzantine Coin Denominations

Collectors enjoy the challenge of building sets of Byzantine Coin denominations The Byzantine Empire (491 to 1453 CE/AD) produced a tremendous number of coins during its near-millennium of existence. A large percentage of these coins were struck in copper, often Byzantine Coin denominations marks are rendered in Greek or Latin. Byzantine coinage is generally considered to have […]

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The Image of Jesus on Ancient Coins

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: Coinage of the Merovingians

By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek …. The Franks had little idea of the state as a public institution, and the regnum Francorum (kingdom of the Franks), while remaining a family inheritance, was inherited according to the rules of private law, divided on each occasion between the sons or nearest male relatives of the deceased (Grierson […]

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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series: Coinage of the Merovingians

By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….   The Franks had little idea of the state as a public institution, and the regnum Francorum (kingdom of the Franks), while remaining a family inheritance, was inherited according to the rules of private law, divided on each occasion between the sons or nearest male relatives of the deceased […]

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