A Short History of Ancient Greek Coins
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- Опубликовано: 7 июн 2024
- Show me the money... or the drachmae. In this video, we take a quick look at the history, variety and beauty of coins from the ancient Greek world.
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Ancient Greece during the Archaic Period (750-480 BC)
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Drachno means "I seize" in ancient Greek. Because the first Greek currency were those iron or silver rods, it was said that they were "seizing" these. Hence the word "Drachme" or "Drachma" for the currency. The "seized thing".
The..................................infinit
@@julianaalcantara3595 What?
Grasp. I think it's to grasp or I grasp
Coins have always been a staple of history. There's almost a separate branch of individuals that dedicated their academic careers to studying coins and forms of currency alone -- at least back in the day-- and a majority of research was tenured on Ancient Greece! But I'm sure everybody knows that. Coins are just awesome.
Agreed, I love ancient coins, especially Greek ones from the east. Thanks for watching, really appreciate it... more on the way, stay tuned and safe!
A group of us would play a game with dice that we bet on. But we didn't want to use real money. We used tolkens, but we wanted to use our own home made ones. I thought, "how hard could it be". We used pewter (a very soft metal), and made some dies. I will not go into all that went wrong. I now have a great deal of respect for those early coin makers.
Thanks a lot for this one; I always found historical currency and coins to be one of the hardest things to understand about the past
Yeah there's so much history dealing with coins... wish I had time to research and cover more. Thanks for watching!
We have a few Indo-greek coins as well. A few from Menader, A few from some other Indo-greek kings. Excellent craftsmanship on those ones, Miles better than what the contemporaries were minting.
Menandros?
@@natanulsiref the one the Buddhists call "Milinda". I do not know too much about Indo-Greek Kingdoms, but my pa collects those. We also have some coins from a guy Apollodotus the First, They're far cheaper than the Menander's coins. Menader's Silver coins can go upwards of 60 dollars a coin, While Apollodotus' coins are way cheaper, We got them in a bundle the wife of a deceased Coin collector was selling.
I love coins and I love ancient history and have traveled in Greece and so I love this video. Very informative. Thanks again, Cy!
Thanks! This video is a bit different than my usual ones so I'm glad that you found it interesting. More on the way, thanks for watching and stay safe!
Very informative video Cy. Can’t wait for this new series! Do you also collect ancient coins? I have a drachm of Menander I Soter the Indo Greek king and agree that their coins are the best in the Hellenistic world.
Wow! Just wow! I'm 100% agree with you that coins might be one of the fines examples of the art from the antiquity! I'm also into numismatics, so thanks a lot for such a great video!
Great to hear! There will be a lot of examples of coins in future programs, so you're in luck. Thanks for watching this short video, really appreciate it!
I was thinking of sleeping, but then I saw a new video from History with Cy. And now it's time to watch some more.
Haha thanks! The good thing is this one is short... make sure that you get a lot of rest before the Peloponnesian War series coming soon! Thanks for watching, appreciate it!
Oh now I'm really excited. It's funny you mention that since I've gotten stuck into Assassin's Creed Odyssey again as that conflict is starting in the background.
I have been consuming your channel this last week, starting with your meso american videos. Thanks for sharing your knowledge, I appreciate your delivery.
My pleasure and welcome! Glad you found some stuff that you like here. More on the way, including Mesoamerica, hopefully in summer of this year. Thanks for watching and stay tuned for more!
Great and helpful video, as usual 💗
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! More on the way, including Dynasty V in a couple of weeks, stay tuned!
@@HistorywithCy Great! I hope you will use something from my videos from Abusir and Saqqara, a lot of V Dynasty there ;)
@@ancientsitesgirl That'd be awesome! The video is scheduled for sometime in Feb but I haven't started recording it yet, so I'll review the script and see what 5th dynasty monuments/pyramids would be cool and then get in touch with you. Thanks!
@@HistorywithCy Very well! That would be an honor!
@@ancientsitesgirl Hi there, just sent you an email! Speak soon!
You could do a whole video on weird ancient currencies. Weren't Egyptian workers paid in bread and beer at some points? I'm sure lots of other places have pre-coinage mediums of exchange that also weren't just barter.
Well you could be paid in salt
@@johnree6106 Another great example of what could go in the video.
Egyptians lived on bread and beer. Were they being paid or fed?
Great and interesting video! Loved it!
My pleasure, thanks for watching!
This was fascinating
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! More on the way, stay tuned!
Kudos to History with Cy! I was amazed that you even took up the aesthetic aspects of Coinage!
J. Porteous wrote in his ‘The nature of coinage’,
" the fifth century saw the minting of the most beautiful coins EVER made. " (capitalization mine) referring to Greek coinage in Classical Greece!
Love this channel
Thanks, love my viewers! More on the way, stay tuned!
So helpful, honestly
Great video as always Cy! As expected, Sparta is always going to be the odd polis out!
Haha it is... imagine if people still used iron rods today! Thanks for watching, really appreciate it... stay safe!
Thank you for your video. Regarding 1:02, Electrum is a naturally occurring alloy of Gold & Silver. The gold content in Electrum coins from ancient Lydia varied from 45% to 55%. The Gold Parting Process was invented which could separate Gold & Silver from Electrum and enabled Silver coins and Gold coins to be minted separately. The Electrum separation process is known as Salt Cementation where Electrum was combined with salt, urine and brick dust (or pulverized pottery shards), sealed in a crucible and heated. Purified Gold would then remain in the crucible along with Silver Chloride which would later be purified into Silver. To convert Silver Chloride dissolved in an aqueous solution to pure Silver powder, mix into solution some Lye and Sugar. Then recover the precipitated Silver powder and melt it into bullion to produce planchets which can be minted into Silver coins.
Hi, thanks for watching, and thanks for explaining this, really helps me and others reading this to understand the process. Thank you!
every channel about antiquity is into coinage now and I love it!!
Me too! More to come, stay tuned!
@@HistorywithCy bactrian gold staters though
I've always been fascinated by ancient economies and how they worked. Who minted the coins? How did the coins get out into circulation? How do you get the people to accept such a radical new standard in the first place? Were there banks that borrowed from the "state treasury" and helped with the distribution of the coins? Who gets to be a bank? If the state controls all coin production, what were taxes for? How did they prevent fraudulent/counterfeit currency? If the mineral deposits dried up, where did they go for more? How did they control inflation? How did they control the money supply AT ALL? Did they even know how much was out there? Did they even have a concept of GDP, employment, interest rates, consumer price index, public debt, etc....
So many questions, sorry. It just seems like the transition from barter to monetary economies requires a whole bunch of things to come into being all at once beyond simple mass adoption of coins. A sudden shock like that usually doesn't happen overnight.
5:02 ur killing me smalls. Bactrian coins are some of my favorites too. See you at the auction! I am looking for the one shown here now!
Very nice
What struck me the most by the Greek coins I saw were the size. Yes, some were pretty big but so many were tiny. I remember when I was in Philip's tomb there was a wonderful display many coins that were the size of a dime or smaller.
I own an obol from the reign of Demetrius I Aniketos/Damaytra of the Greco-Bactrians/Indo-Greeks, and god DAMN it is the most beautiful piece of silver I’ve ever seen. Almost all of his coins include the madlad wearing an elephant scalp, which both symbolizes his conquest of India and also calls back to Alexander, who had issued similar coins for a short period. If anyone has any questions on their own Greco-Bactrian coins, I recommend trying to get in contact with Osmund Bopearachchi, he’s a Sri Lankan numismatist who is the definitive expert on coinage of the Greek East. He’s getting very old but is still alive and teaching classes, and his email is publicly available on his website.
Oh man, that sounds like a awesome coin! Thanks also for telling me about Osmund Bopearachchi, I'll look him up! The Greek east is one of the most interesting topics for me and I'm trying to get to it by summer! Thanks for watching, really appreciate it and more on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Those coins could tell some good ole stories
For sure, hope to get into some of them in the next few months, stay tuned and thanks for watching!
Also I really am interested in more videos on Graeco-Bactria and the Indo-Greek Kingdom(s).
Coming this summer, stay tuned!
Thank you
You're welcome, thanks for watching!
Good video, I watched it originally on release day but I decide to watch it again today lol
Thanks, thought you'd be interested in this one. Haha see any you'd like for your collection?
@@HistorywithCy I like some of those gold coins lol
Great video, Graeco-Bactrian are also my favorite :)
Awesome! You'll be seeing more of them this summer when I hopefully get to that part of history. As always, thanks for watching, really appreciate it and hope all is well on your end!
Very interesting topics and I think you could go a bit deeper into it.
Lindybeige did a very interesting long rant about the British old coins and how the system worked there and I wouldn't mind a good guide to Greek and Lydian coins.
Lindybeige is very entertaining, he has some great videos
Oh love Lindybeige, one of the pioneers on this platform! Perhaps in future, yes, we could definitely go more into it. Thanks for your interest in this stuff, appreciate it!
I love ancient coins!
Me too, it just boggles my mind what ancient transactions these might have been used for! Thanks for watching and more on the way!
Could you do a side video on ancient Roman coins? Also those Greco-Bactrian coins are beautiful!
Great job with the vid! Quick comment, as I am a numismatist and have been collecting ancients for over a decade now. The dating on the presented Aegina and Athenian coinage is quite off. The earliest sea turtle coins date to ca 550-525 BC and are considered the first European coins while the earliest Athenian owls appear on the so called civic mint issues from ca 515-510 BC. Prior to this Athens issued the so called Wappenmunzen coinage which featured either geometric designs or the head of Medusa.
It appears that the presented British museum coin dating is in itself quite outdated since the latest numismatic discoveries have moved the time scales by a few decades.
Also, it is currently disputed on whether the earliest coinage appeared indeed in Lydia or in fact in Greek Ionia, as the oldest specimens from both regions date to roughly exact same time ca. 630 BC. So it’s up for debate.
Thanks so much for the info, really appreciate it as will others who read your comment. That's great you're a numismatist, really interesting stuff! I've been reading "The Hellenistic World: Using Coins as Sources" and a similar one on Athens and while I always liked coins (used to collect them along with stamps as a kid), such books put them in a whole new light. Any books you'd recommend? Thanks again for the comment and the info, really appreciate the feedback from someone in the field!
I mostly learn from catalogues and online numismatic communities but one book that I’d highly recommend is Harlan J Berk’s “100 Greatest Ancient Coins”. It provides some nice background and insight into the history of coinage from its inception up to the fall of Byzantium. Plus some phenomenal quality images of some of the world’s best specimens.
By the way, should’ve mentioned earlier, absolutely love your work! Watched the entire Mesopotamian series at least twice over the years! Looking forward to the Egyptian one in its entirety once it’s finished. Keep it up!
@@mockvi4 Thanks, I see the book on Amazon and will order a copy! And glad you also enjoy the videos, really appreciate the support. Lost more on the way and thanks again for the info and your advice!
@5:43 is that a Hydra coin I'm seeing just below the owl one?
Philip had his face on coins. The celts also copied those coins for themselves. After serving as mercenaries go figure
"Wisdom outweighs any wealth"
- Sophocles
what about the dolphin coin of olbia I may have missed it
FINALLY
Fun. 👵
Material culture is a very interesting subject altogether.
I think about this a lot ...
Bought all my family members ancient coins for Xmas. Mostly Roman but a couple Greek. I didn't plan on getting many - maybe 8 to 10 - but it was so fascinating that before I knew it I had around 25 or so lol. I did end up giving them all away, but I still have 1 on its way that I'm going to keep. They're just so cool to hold in your hand and consider it's life.
Lmao what? You're talking about copies, right?
Agreed! I'd love to delve more into it but it can get to be expensive hobby since you can never buy just one or two! Just to think who may have held the coin so long ago and what they may have bought with it! Thanks for watching, really appreciate it and stay tuned for more!
@@sergeant_chris6209 oh there are many sites online where you can order authentic coins. Ones that were once widely in circulation are not as rare as you might think. Check out sites like vcoins or even Ebay. Some are relatively inexpensive, others depending on the rarity and the metal, quite expensive!
@@HistorywithCy damn i had no idea that this was allowed lol
@@sergeant_chris6209 Yeah, the most expensive were about 70$. The Roman silver denarius. No famous emperor on it or anything. other bronze ones were only about 20-25 each. Got some from the danbury mint, some from APMEX, and Vcoins had some but I think they were out of my price range. I was also surprised how affordable they could be and how ubiquitous they are. Now if you want a Julius Caesar or Augustus coin or roman republic stuff... that kind of famous stuff gets more expensive. It's amazing though
Certainly everything you do is good and fun, but archaeologists, languages, mythology and anthropology also have a lot of opinions and theories about who is the heir of these civilizations from the peoples that exist now, I hope to see in the next videos something that narrows the controversy between all Who says he belongs to this or that civilization, stay safe
They actually lugged around 58 lb. slabs of silver, the absolute mad lads
Excellent
Thank you! Cheers!
*_Coins were invented by Croesus indeed but they were mass produced and manufactured by the Persian Empire and Cyrus._*
wasn't there was especial royale golden coin in Egypt long before but only used among royales?
Good stuff
Do a video of ancient aztec coins
Aztecs used coins?.I know Cocoa Beans were a form of currency for them but coins?, Is there a vid about this?.
As a Greek I can ensure that this was fascinating
Thank you, glad you liked it! A lot more ancient Greek history on the way, stay tuned and thanks for watching!
I never knew that these coins could also be a form of art.
Oh yeah, some of the most beautiful in my opinion... check out Greco-Bactrian coins, they're my favorite. Thanks for watching, really appreciate it!
I wonder if the metal quality was mixed during wars. I have heard that the silver and gold metal in some coins would because the need for money during wars be lowered and mixed with other metals.
That has been common through history all over the world. Heck, the Swedish king Gustav Wasa actually forged fake coins with Christian IV (the Danish king who occupied Sweden before Gustav threw him out) since everyone knew those coins more silver in them (the forgeries certainly didn't).
A classic gold coin is 22 carat because if you add more gold it gets so soft that it wont stay in shape with normal handling but many rulers have diluted their coins on purpose and so have private individuals.
It was also pretty common to "shave" off a bit of gold from the outside of the coin (the rulers usually added a little silver or copper, a couple of percent which adds up when we are talking about thousands of coins).
Gold coins were always a favorite to falsify, more then a few historical coins have turned out to be a gold plating on a lead base but I don't think many if any rulers did that since it would crash their economy if it was found out. Diluting the gold to 20 carat were a bit harder to detect but Archimedes did figure out how to do it so it became known pretty fast.
Not to mention that many goldsmiths used coins as material and if you diluted your coins that would be pretty obvious when the coins were melted. So you could probably get away with 20 or so carat but below that people would figure it out.
Henry VIII cheated with his silver pennies so much that people called him "Old coppernose" (not to his face though, he did like executing people) because when his pennies were handled a bit the copper shined through at the kings noose. A bit off topic to classical coins but a great story. :)
@@loke6664 pretty interesting to find out rulers where forging money
@@johnree6106 Lol, does that surprise you?
The back story is that the Hansa was banking Gustav but he had a huge loan to them when he came to power so he diluted the heck out of his silver dalers since the loan was specified in those.
To get enough silver even for that he made his country protestant and confiscated a lot of land, church silver and even the church bells (those he turned into cannons).
That solved his debt problem but now he had the problem that no one wanted to be payed in his money which is why he counterfeited Danish silver coins (still with little silver in them).
Politicians have always been a bit scheming but Gustav took it to a new level.
He was beaten by Richard Millhouse Nixon though who skipped the dollars ties to gold totally so he could do the same far easier.
The thing is that inflation wasn't really the same thing as long as coins were made of gold and silver. 2 ounce of gold was worth 2 ounce of gold no matter what any expert claimed but if you lacked enough gold to pay your debts you either had to earn more or get creative.
Today you just print more money (or add more into the computer run system) which of course means that if the economy collapses it really collapses like it did in Germany after the great war or Venezuela today.
I am pretty sure there are other kings besides Gustav and Henry who diluted the gold and silver of their coins but the only other leader I can think of that counter-fitted foreign money was Hitler who printed pound notes and had plans to smuggle them to England. Rumors say that North Korea are making dollar notes but I don't know if that is true.
I love my 480 b.c. Athenian Owl Greek Tetradrachm
I have one AOE coin 🪙 I want sold that so how can I ??
Best thing is to probably find a certified coin dealer in your area. They can do an appraisal for you but also do your research online and see what similar coins are going for. Good luck!
Yeaaa ma country 🇬🇷
A lot of people forget that china had gold silver coins befor any western nations
I see those coins and think. People must have filed and cut off the edges to get some of the metal because it was an expensive commodity still back in those days! That is why they put those ridges on new coins.
Yeah I've heard that somewhere too... even heard that some people would simple cut a coin in half and just use it as payment according to the weight, especially after the Roman empire had fallen. Interesting stuff! Thanks for watching and more on the way, stay tuned and safe!
👍
Thank you!
In the 1950s. My great grandfather was tortured to death by the British and my grandmother survived but she had to run to escape rape, and torture and she managed to hide in a well, gashing and breaking her leg on the descent. She died a few years later in my mothers arms. She [said] that she was lucky that Cyprus has the oldest wells in the world.
I know that some British people had nothing to do with invading our homes and land, but there is still some semblance of hate within me towards them.
My grandmother found coins from Salamis, single-sided silver pieces. The British thieves stole everything.
👍👍👍
Thanks my friend, for this and also the link! Stay safe!
I have an Aegina coin 😊
Nice! Aeginian coins are simple but beautiful with the sea turtle. Thanks for watching, really appreciate it! Stay tuned for more!
Greek person here! Stαy sαfε
Thanks, you too!
Brother can you make a video on how the arameans became the syriacs (kingdom of edessa).
Interesting topic, I can look into it.
@@HistorywithCy great. Thank you. Key words you can search for research is "aramaic" "syriacs" "syriac language" "arameans" "kingdom of osroene" . I think this will help alot
@@HistorywithCy also you can search for world council of arameans. They have alot of info.
@@HistorywithCy we have our own flag also. Aramean flag 🙂
@@HistorywithCy if you want a fun fact , the word kebab comes from aramaic word kababu meaning burning or cooking. 😄
Do sassanids or more India stuff
Coming soon... stay tuned!
Question: why did the quality of the art of the Byzentine and Sassanian coins get so much worse over time? the usual explanation of "the byzentine economy got worse" doesn't make sense when we see that the same happened to Persia which had a growing economy
Late birthday present
🎉Happy Birthday, all the best and thanks for watching!
Not only it is interesting to learn more about coins, but also it is nice to see how a king looked like , coins allow us to learn that as well.
I wish to also mention that I like any economy which is based on real wealth , i.e. gold/ silver/ bronze. This means of course I am not a huge fan of the economy today which is based on making more out of "thin air " , i.e. you do not have to produce or to own something to become rich and your money are often not physical , my money are also just a number in the e-banking software, not gold, so I cannot say I am an exception. I wonder where would all this lead to ? I wonder if it is cool to just keep printing money like the USA does ? :D
Well? What came next? I imagine coins with the Roman emperors face on them, what about Byzantine coins?
Did I mishear? Electron is an alloy? I´ve learned electron means amber.
I think he meant Electrum
@@LukeBunyip Ah ok, didn´t know that. Sounds like a modern thing. Thank you!
According to wikipedia the greek used the word for both the alloy and amber.
It's electrum. Thanks!
Hi A Have 1908
You located chalkis city in a totally wrong place its located very close to eretria city ...i bet u didn t know where to put it cuz it was the only coin in the map that was spinning...last summer i manage to find 13 coins just like this one on the video and i gave em to the archeologists
Hi, thanks for your comment. Actually, there were a few towns named Chalcis on the mainland in addition to the one on Euboea, one in Aetolia, one around Elis and another I believe in Epirus. But you're right, the one in Eretria is the most famous. I talked about it in the video on the Lelantine War a few months back. Thanks for stopping by, appreciate it!
and you never used the word 'numismatics' once! :D
Haha I might be a nerd, but not that big of a nerd to use such a term 🤣🤣🤣. Thanks for watching, really appreciate it... stay tuned for more!
Wait, did you call me a big nerd!?! :D
Will do!
Indo greek civilisation please
Coming soon...
First