Ancient Greek Coins

From Crude to Truly Artistic

Before Jesus Christ walked the lands, before Romans attempted to build the Empire that would rule the world for a thousand of years, there was Ancient Greece. Ancient Greeks lived all around the "old" world from Asia and India to Africa and Europe, including Britain and Russia. It was a real free world with their own political ruling system in every police (fortified town). The system of beliefs and the right to part take in Olympic Games were common to all Ancient Greeks irrespective of where they lived, and that made them a nation, until Alexander the Great managed to unite them with force. Their culture influenced all other non-Greek cultures greatly and this influence can still be found in different forms in all European based cultures. Ancient Greek coins are the little pieces of your own ancient history.

Greek Ancient Coins are genuine pieces of that history. First coins were struck about 680 B.C., that is nearly 2700 year ago. First Greek coins were crude and over the years they were becoming more and more artistic (e.g. well known coins of Athens 500-485 B.C.) these crude coins are described as belonging to the Archaic period (680-480 B.C.). The Archaic period was followed by the period of Transitional Art (480-415 B.C.) and finally by the period of Finest Art (415-336 B.C.). Some of the world's most artistic coins were made during these times that appeal to coin collectors not only because they are ridiculously old, but also are very beautiful collectable pieces (e.g. coins of Sicily).. This was followed by the period of Later Fine Art (336-280 B.C.). That's where the coinage becomes more state orientated. These coins come from the greatest times in history, the time of the first ever empire that is known by everyone, the rise of Alexander the Great, the Macedonian king. As all good thing come to an end, so did the artistic side of Greek coinage. We come to the period of the Decline of the Art (280-146 B.C.) and the period of Continued decline in Art (146-27 B.C.). The coinage becomes more rulers’ oriented and less artistic, as the Greek empire fell to pieces, new kingdoms were formed and fought for; they needed their own coinage quickly. This was followed by the Imperial Period (27 B.C-A.D. 268), which is probably best described as Roman period, since coinage was minted under Roman rule and resembles Roman coins, with one little difference - the inscriptions were still made in Greek.