DATES ON ANCIENT COINS

DATES ARE SO universal on modern coins that it may come as a shock to learn that most ancient coins provide no indication of when they were minted. The Common Era (or AD, Anno Domini) dating system used in our world to designate years did not come into general use on European coins until the 16th century. A wide variety of dating systems were used by different cultures in the ancient world to keep track of years, and in some cases, these appear on coins.

Zankle

 

Silver Tetradrachm, Zancle 491/490 BCE 17.072 g, 23.5 mm. Asyut hoard. Chisel cut. Image: American Numismatic Society.

The earliest coins to bear a year date were a brief experiment – lasting just six years – by Greek refugees from the Aegean island of Samos who fled the Persian occupation of their homeland to settle at Zankle (today Messina, Sicily) in 494 BCE. On coins they struck, they dated their arrival as Year One, indicated by a prominent letter A (alpha, the Greek numeral for 1). Coins are known for Years 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6, but no coin of Year 3 has ever turned up. These silver tetradrachms show the head of a lion on the obverse, and the prow of a ship on the reverse. One of the few published examples of this series that I found is dated Year Four (with delta, ?, the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet) in the collection of the American Numismatic Society (ANS) in New York. The coin, from the famous Asyut Hoard found in Egypt in 1969, has a deep chisel cut that nearly broke it in half.

Samos

 

Samos. Circa 453/2-440/39 BC. Silver Tetradrachm (24mm, 13.09 g,). SNG Copenhagen 1681. Classical Numismatic Group. Auction 117. 19 May 2021. Lot: 224. Realized: $8,000

Back on Samos a few decades later, this experiment was repeated. From 454 to 440 BCE, silver tetradrachms of Samos were dated with a sequence of Greek alphabetic numerals. The date letter appears on the reverse, below the chin of a bull. A rare example with a date from Year 5 brought $8,000 USD in a 2021 U.S. auction. The experiment was abandoned in 439 when Samos was defeated in a short war by Athens.

To read the complete article, see:
Dates on Ancient Coins (https://coinweek.com/how-to-read-dates-on-ancient-coins/)

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