Money Makes the World Go ‘Round: Ancient Greek Coin

At the beginning of this year, I came across an article in theVirginian Pilotthat discussed a coin collection held at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras, NC. All of the coins, 55 in total, were found on the beaches of the Outer Banks by a couple who visited the barrier islands starting around 1940. Impressively, some of the coins are over 2,000 years old and come from Ancient Greece and Rome. My mind raced – I immediately wondered if our own museum held similar coins.

To say I was surprised would be an understatement. We have more than a few coins from the ancient world, some of which are in excellent condition like the silver piece above. On this coin that is well over 2300 years old, we see a floating galley on the reverse and a curious figure on the obverse. Some records of similar coins from the Phoenician city of Arados label their male figure as Poseidon, or sometimes Zeus, but these are Greek deities.

相反，我认为这个戴着获奖者的胡须身材是梅尔卡特。这个神灵的名字转化为“城市之王”，是顾客之神，也是特里的万神殿的负责人，这是一个位于阿拉多斯（Arados）的腓尼基城市国家。他也被称为Ba’al de Sor，，，，Lord of Tyre, and was associated with the monarchy, commercial trade, the sea and colonization. Interestingly, Melqart was well-known in Semitic religions, and could likely be the Ba’al mentioned in the Tanakh. Additionally, he is linked to the Greek Herakles and Roman Hercules, often being called the Tyrian Hercules. But despite the shiny draw of this particular silver piece, this was not the coin or collection that caught my eye; instead I was taken by a more unassuming numismatic (the study or collection of coin and paper currency) collection.

Commodore Rodgers及其肮脏的木箱

While I searched through our online catalog for Greek coins, one image that popped up in the search was the box pictured below. “How curious,” I thought, “for a box to be revealed in a search for coins?” I quickly clicked on this object and discovered that this box, whose lid is decorated with simple Regency-style inlay and a metal inset-medallion engraved with “J. Rodgers”, housed the coin collection of Commodore John Rodgers.

The Rodgers family, as a whole, was key in the foundational efforts of the American Navy. Commodore Rodgers’ father, Colonel John Rodgers, was a Scotch emigre to the American colonies prior to the American Revolution, and was a proponent of the patriot cause. Commodore Rodgers followed in his father’s footsteps and served for nearly 40 years and under 6 presidents in the Navy’s nascency. He was a prominent war hero who served in the Quasi War, the First and Second Barbary Wars, and in the War of 1812. From 1815-1837 he served on the Board of Naval Commissioners, and died one year after his retirement. His son, John Rodgers Jr, and four of his grandsons, all served in the United States Navy.

But let’s get back to the box and the coins held within. There are 16 coins in total, and all appear to originate from antiquity (roughly two-thirds of these coins are from Greece or neighboring semitic city-states). It is my belief that Rodgers collected the Greek and Roman treasures while he was commanding the Mediterranean Squadron from November 1824 – May 1827. All of the coins show a decent amount of wear, or what I like to think of as love from Commodore Rodgers. So I spent some time looking through various coin records and collections to find matching coins with similar details to a few of Commodore Rodgers’ coins.

A little Numismatic History

就我们有任何知识而言，他们（Lydians）是第一个引入黄金和银币使用的人，也是第一个通过零售出售商品的人。– Herodotus

Something about history that I love – it is always changing as archaeologists continue to uncover more of world history through discovered artifacts. So, we typically say “the oldestknown…” because there is always the chance that we could find something older. In fact, it was only 2 weeks ago that scientists discovered the oldest known cave painting, a pig painted 45,500 years ago in Sulawesi, Indonesia (before this, the earliest known cave paintings were also from Sulawesi cave complex and dated to 44,000 years ago)! Thus, the oldest known minted coins were produced in Lydia, present-day Turkey, around 625 BCE. These were made of electrum, a silver and gold alloy, and usually had an image of a lion on the obverse and two incuse squares on the reverse. Incuse marks are the marks made by the hammer used during the minting process; when there is an image on the reverse, these marks are not present.

This was not, however, the first time that a precious metal was used for currency. Prior to the Lydian government minting coins, rings or ingots (bars) of metal could be used in trade; but in order to discern their value, these bits of precious metal would need to be weighed. With a government entity in charge of minting, coin standards and weights were put into place, thereby eliminating this time-consuming task. Around the year 550 BCE, King Croesus replaces electrum with pure silver (or occasionally gold) coins.

The preferred coin standard was the Atheniandrachma，，，，which weighed 4.3 grams of silver, and all other coin weights are based off of this. The Corinthian stater, for example, weighed 8.6 grams of silver. Interestingly, the word drachm(a) translates to “a handful” or literally “a grasp.” The drachma is made up of 6 obols, Greek for spit – like a rotisserie spit – and 6 spits makes a handful, which suggests that prehistoric Greeks used spits as a means of transactional currency. All of this means that the nomenclature of drachma, a currency used in Greece until 2002 when it was replaced by the Euro, directly relates to pre-numismatic time!

罗杰斯的硬币

Now that we have the history out of the way, I’d like to share a few of the coins in the Rodgers’ collection of which I am particularly fond. Greek numismatic periods follow the same periods of Greek art: Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman (called Roman Provincial coin); and I’ll present our coins in this order, alongside images of similar coins from other collections.

有几件事了解希腊硬币that help us verify authenticity, and also determine their locale. All Greek coins are handmade, and therefore they are all imperfect! If a coin appears to be machined, we can instantly tell that it is counterfeit. Additionally, Greece was composed of more than 2000 independently regulated city-states and roughly half of these each produced their own coin. Typically, each city-state would mint their coin with their specific patron deity on the obverse and a symbol or important emblem of their city-state on the reverse.

Archaic period: 7th C BCE – 480 BCE

This coin is the科林斯的飞马stater这是科林斯（Croesus）国王时期的科林斯硬币，它是水手博物馆收藏中最古老的物品之一。正面是飞马的有翼马，在马下方有一个叫做A的符号qoppa协会,有文化修养的象征iated with Corinth’s name. On the reverse of the coin are 4 incuse marks that are referred to as quadrapartite marks consisting of a swastika. In this case, it is a left-facing swastika that is composed of four gammas (Γ) called a伽玛座，是一个吉祥的符号。以下是衰老较少的类似硬币的图像。

古典期：480 - 330公元前

The above triobol coin dates to 478-460 BCE and comes from Phokis (or Phocis), an ancient federation of 20 townships that included the city of Delphi. It was located in central Greece and served as a crossroads for much of Greek history and religion, being divided by Mount Parnassus and including the pass of Thermopylae, the city of Doria, and the Oracle of Delphi. This coin features a bull on the obverse and profile image of the god Artemis on the reverse. Curiously, all records I have found name Artemis on the reverse, rather than the obverse.

It is possible that the bull on the obverse is a representation of the bull sacrifice that would be made during Pythian community festivals. However, I think the bull might be a representation of the bronze bull statue that the Corcyraeans dedicated in 480 BCE to commemorate an especially hefty catch of tuna. According to Greek geographer Pausanias, herders in Corfu noticed a bull fleeing his flock each day and heading to the water; they followed and found a sea full of fish – yet they were unable to catch any. After seeking advice from the Oracle at Delphi, they sacrificed a bull to Poseidon and were finally able to catch the fish. They then used proceeds from the fish to erect the bronze bull, a clear image of which (I believe) is on the coin below.

希腊时期：公元前330 - 31

Typically, the symbol of a city-state is something they are known for, an export they have, or a symbol of their patron deity. For example, the symbol of Athens was the owl, which was their patron deity, Athena’s, symbol. Knossos would typically depict a labyrinth or a minotaur, Corinth would display the pegasus, and Esphesus would have the bee, the symbol of Artemis. But Rhodes was different; instead of a symbol of their city-state, they chose a play on words with a depiction of the rose, whose Greek word was Rhodon.

On the reverse of this coin, like the one below, we can see a small rose inside an incuse square. This series of coins, called the plinthophoric series, ran from ca. 190-84 BCE and derives its name fromplinthos，意思是砖。玫瑰设计是在一个小底座上雕刻而成的，而不是像我们在该系列中看到的其他人那样占据硬币的整个反面。硬币的正面是罗德斯（Rhodes）戴着辐射冠的顾客神灵的剖面图像。

Roman Provincial Coin: 31 BCE – Dissolution of Greek city-states

The Hellenistic Period ends with the Roman conquest at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the subsequent fall of the Ptolemaic Empire in the year following. With this, coinage in Ancient Greece changes as Roman coinage is preferred and seen as more valuable. However, Imperial Rome still allows Greek city-states to produce their own coin for local trade and as a matter of expediency.

我们收藏中的这枚硬币非常磨损，难以辨别图像，但并非不可能。我们的目录指出，正面可能是雅典娜或密涅瓦（Roman）等同于雅典娜（Athena）。相反的是一些可能是猫头鹰的团块。我的希望和信念是，这是正确的，这将符合该时期的数值。在下面，我发现了我认为与密涅瓦（Minerva）的类似硬币，而反面的猫头鹰则是一只猫头鹰。此外，这两枚硬币都是用青铜制成的，这在罗马省时期变得越来越普遍，因为白银被淘汰了。

Playing favorites & Parting Thoughts

通常，我很难在如此出色的收藏中选择一个喜欢的收藏夹，但是在这种情况下，这很容易，因为坦率地说，我很喜欢一些争议。我们有一枚经典时期的硬币，其中包括赫拉克尔斯（Herakles）与尼美狮（Nemean Lion）的反面作战，而正面是神灵的形象，我们的目录名称为雅典娜（Athena）戴着科林斯头盔。

但是，我想知道这是否正确，我会提出一些理论。首先，这款头盔没有凸出的头顶上方的凸轮，这是科林斯头盔雅典娜穿着的典型特征。至于我们的神秘主题，硬币伴随的标签只是说“米尔蒂亚德”，这可能是指雅典将军，他在公元前490年在马拉松战役中击败了波斯人。这可能是我们的正面英雄吗？最后，我个人最喜欢的理论是，正面的人物是赫拉克尔斯的父亲宙斯，就像下面的硬币一样。但是，如果没有更多的研究，我们将无法确定！

And yet, this coin is not my favorite item in the Commodore Rodgers collection – that place is held by a very special miniature painting of the Commodore featuring a lock of his hair. But I think I will have to save hair miniatures for a different blog (our Victorian friends who made these would actually wear them!). So as I sign off, I implore you to do your own investigation into Greek numismatics – search our online catalog for all the coins we have, or look into other collections around the world. It might even lead you to something you’d never expect to find.