The Origins of Coinage

The Greek Coinage System

In the area of Greek influence, by c. 700 BC precious metal, especially silver, had already been used by weight in exchanges for over a thousand years. The first coins in this area were probably produced by the Lydians in Western Asia Minor, using electrum, a natural variable alloy of gold and silver, of which they had large stocks. The Lydians produced small electrum globules of standard weight with a deep punch on one side and their royal badge, a lion, on the other, as a sign of quality and royal guarantee.

Electrum trite, Lydia Alyattes (c.610-561 BC). © Fitzwilliam Museum	Gold stater, Lydia Croesus (561-46 BC). © Fitzwilliam Museum
Silver stater, Lydia, Croesus (561-46 BC). © Fitzwilliam Museum

The Greek cities along the West coast of Asia Minor, which traded extensively with the Lydians, quickly took up this convenient invention, and struck coins with the sign of their own city-community (the polis) instead of the Lydian royal lion. From the mid-sixth century, coins of pure silver and gold were already being used instead of ones of electrum, because it was easier to assess their value than that of coins made from naturally variable electrum.

Electrum 1/48 stater, Teos, mid-6th c. BC © Fitzwilliam Museum

Over the next one hundred years, the images on coins developed. Gradually the two-sided coin evolved. The punch-marks, known as incuses, developed in complexity and were filled in with pictorial images. Later these were replaced by a moulded relief of the kind already used on the obverse of the coin. As the developed city economies of the Greek world needed small change, they produced token copper-alloy coins from the late fifth century BC, replacing the tiny silver coins used earlier. In the Late Classical and Hellenistic periods, the images or ‘portaits’ of rulers appeared on coins for the first time . The Roman monetary system, which was to be so influential upon European coins, was derived from the Greek system.

Silver tetradrachm, Athens c. mid 5th c. BC. © Fitzwilliam Museum	Silver tetradrachm, Naxos c. 460 BC. © Fitzwilliam Museum

Silver drachm, Larissa c. 400 BC. © Fitzwilliam Museum	Silver half drachm, Larissa, c. 420 BC. © Fitzwilliam Museum	Silver obol, Larissa, c. 440 BC. © Fitzwilliam Museum

Silver obol, Larissa, mid-4th c. BC. © Fitzwilliam Museum	Bronze coin, Gomphi, mid-4 th c. BC. © Fitzwilliam Museum
Silver stater, Cyzicus, c. 410 BC. © Fitzwilliam Museum

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Department of Coins and Medals, © Fitzwilliam Museum.