READING ANCIENT GREEK COINS

MODERN AMERICAN COINS are required by law to include quite a lot of text.

In contrast, ancient Greek coins are remarkably laconic.

Many bear no inscription at all — the technical numismatic term for this (from Greek, of course!) is “anepigraphic”. We can only guess at the level of literacy in the ancient Greek-speaking world. By one estimate, about five to 10 percent of the adult male population could read and write (Harris, 114). Several non-Greek societies (Celtic, Semitic, and Persian) used Greek letters for their coin inscriptions. Ancient Greek coin inscriptions are all written in “capital” letters; lower case letters were a post-Classical development used mainly in manuscripts. There were usually no spaces between words.

To read the complete article, see:
Reading Ancient Greek Coins (https://coinweek.com/ancient-coins/reading-ancient-greek-coins/)

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