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Early coinage made from metal came into use during the Axial Age in the Greek world, in northern India, and in China, as coins became a widespread embodiment of money. [2] Bronze, gold, silver and electrum (a naturally occurring pale yellow mixture of gold and silver that was further alloyed with silver and copper) were used.
Rock cupules (/ ˈ k j uː p j uː l /) are artificially made depressions on rock surfaces that resemble the shape of an inverse spherical cap or dome. [1] They were made by direct percussion with hand-held hammer-stones, on vertical, sloping or horizontal rock surfaces.
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Coins were first made of scraps of metal by hitting a hammer positioned over an anvil. The Chinese produced primarily cast coinage, and this spread to South-East Asia and Japan. Although few non-Chinese cast coins were produced by governments, it was a common practice amongst counterfeiters. Electrum coin from Ephesus, 650-625 BC.
Striking a coin refers to pressing an image into the blank metal disc, or planchet, and is a term descended from the days when the dies were struck with hammers to deform the metal into the image of the dies. Modern dies made out of hardened steel are capable of producing many hundreds of thousands of coins before they are retired and defaced.
The three most important standards of the ancient Greek monetary system were the Attic standard, based on the Athenian drachma of 4.3 grams (2.8 pennyweights) of silver, the Corinthian standard based on the stater of 8.6 g (5.5 dwt) of silver, that was subdivided into three silver drachmas of 2.9 g (1.9 dwt), and the Aeginetan stater or didrachm of 12.2 g (7.8 dwt), based on a drachma of 6.1 g ...
The touchstone allowed anyone to easily and quickly determine the purity of a metal sample. This, in turn, led to the widespread adoption of gold as a standard of exchange. Although mixing gold with less expensive materials was common in coinage, using a touchstone one could easily determine the quantity of gold in the coin, and thereby ...
Striking coins: wall relief at Rostock. In later history, in order to increase the production of coins, hammered coins were sometimes produced from strips of metal of the correct thickness, from which the coins were subsequently cut out. Both methods of producing hammered coins meant that it was difficult to produce coins of a regular diameter.