ELEPHANTS ON ANCIENT COINS

Wild animals that cannot really be domesticated, elephants have a long and often painful history of interaction with humans. The Indus Valley civilization used captive Asian elephants as early as 2000 BCE for logging, transportation and ceremonial processions.

India, not surprisingly, provides the earliest appearance of elephants on coins. The “karshapana”, or “punch-marked silver” coinage of India, dates from 600 BCE to c300 CE. Simple but distinctive images of elephants appear, along with bulls, crescents, stars and sunbursts.

Elephants continue to appear on Indian coinage right down until modern times.

The earliest representation of an elephant on Greek coinage was a result of Alexander’s campaign in India.

Romans first encountered elephants in battle in 280 BCE, when Pyrrhus, king of the Greek region of Epirus, invaded Italy with an army of 25,000 men and 20 war elephants. The Romans recorded the appearance of the animals on some of the heavy bronze ingots they used as currency at the time. Pyrrhus established his base at the Greek city of Taras, which placed a small image of an elephant below a dolphin rider on its silver coinage.

Coins depicting the Pyrrhic War

To read the complete article, see: Elephants on Ancient Coins (www.coinweek.com/featured-news/elephants-ancient-coins/)

Wayne Homren, Editor

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