Quantity and quality of the metal, which reflected on the reputation of The exact exchange value of each was determined by the Inscriptions, and they would often be referred to either by the name of Stamped with recognizable symbols of the city, along with suitable Each city would mint its own and have them Similar information about Pheidon's obeloi was also recorded at the Parian Chronicle. The notion that "drachma" derived from the wordįor fistful was recorded by Herakleides of Pontos (387-312 BC) who was informed by the priests of Heraion that Pheidon, king of Argos, dedicated rod-shaped obeloi to Heraion. Roman mints, and the name 'obol' was used to describe a coin that was It was the standard unit of silver coinage at most ancient Greek and
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Techniques and tools developed over several centuries. Of the ancient Greeks can be traced with these coins, as artists’ Own coins with his image on them – this means that the artistic history Required tribute payments from surrounding city-states in coinage.Īlthough the pictures on ancient Greek coins remained the sameīasically until the rise of Alexander the Great – when he would mint his
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Peloponnesian War, and it wasn’t long before Athens was demanding the The Athenians produced huge quantities of coins during the ClassicalĮra, around 450 BC, in order to finance their enormous building projects These early Greek coins hadĪthena’s owl stamped on one side, the head of Athena on the other, and Made out of silver with a very basic geometric shape on either side.Īround 500 BC, the Attic drachma had become widely used in the cities,īut hadn’t yet spread to the outlying areas. The island of Aegina was the first place in Greece to mint coins, In ancient Greek, the wordĭrachma actually means “the graspable” – thus making it a logical choice Hand of an adult, six obols became equivalent of one drachma coin, once Since around six obols could fit into the Greek historian Herodotus, in his work 'the Histories',īriefly mentioned that the Lydians were minting coins around 600 BC.Įither way, it wasn’t for another 150 years that coins became prominentīefore the Greeks used minted coins, they made use of small iron rodsįor currency, called ‘obols’. At the end of the 7th century,īoth China and Lydia had begun to make plain, round coins for trade. Idea of making small metal medallions that could be traded as currency The first coins to be minted actually came from two places, where the Actually, this traditional coin setupīegan several thousand years ago in ancient Greece.
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It’s rare to find a modern coin that contains anything other than the following standardĭecoration: an important civic symbol on one side, and a bust of a ruler