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Objekt 8110

The Greco-Roman World

Description

Coin and un-coined money

The ancient Greeks made the switch from weighed metal to coins towards the end of the 7th century BC with the introduction of coins in electrum, a gold-silver alloy. By contrast the Romans abandoned weighed bronze as commodity money only three centuries later. In the Greek southern part of the Italian peninsula they did, however, mint silver coins based on the Greek model already some decades earlier. But even in Greece, pre-monetary forms of currency like the Black Sea dolphin coinage remained in circulation for a long time.

Object description

upper level, in the middle:

The Beginnings

Electrum (pale gold) bar, dating unsecure

Mytilene/Lesbos, electrum hekte with lion head, c. 500 BC

Teos, silver stater with griffin, c. 500 BC

Aegina, silver drachm with turtle, c. 480 BC

Inv. 1989.595., 1908.1943., 1908.2007., 1908.1442.

on the right:

Drachms and Dolphin money

Amisos and Sinope in the Black Sea area, silver drachms, 4th cent.

BC Olbia/Crimea, dolphin money, 4th cent. BC

Inv. 1908.1904., 1951.307.; 2009.175.1.-5.

right end:

Roman Greek style coins

Roman Republic, mint in Campania, silver staters and copper litrae according to the Greek coinage system, first half of 3rd cent. BC

Inv. 1908.445. (galvano), 1908.442., 1908.453., 1908.455.

lower level:

Raw and standardized bars

Roman Republic, aes rude and aes signatum, 4th to 3rd cent. BC

Cast bronze. Inv. 2006.188.1.-7., 2004.225.

Audios

Berliner Philharmoniker, Dir. Jonathan Nott The Ligeti Project 2, 2002, Teldec 8573-88261-2

Berliner Philharmoniker, Dir. Jonathan Nott The Ligeti Project 2, 2002, Teldec 8573-88261-2

Berliner Philharmoniker, Dir. Jonathan Nott The Ligeti Project 2, 2002, Teldec 8573-88261-2

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