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Ephesus' great temple of Artemis has provided evidence for the earliest coins yet known from the ancient world. [nb 1] The first structures in the sanctuary, buried deep under the later temples, date back to the eighth century BCE, and from that time on precious objects were used in the cult or dedicated to the goddess by her worshippers.
The Achaemenid Empire issued coins from 520 BC–450 BC to 330 BC. The Persian daric was the first gold coin which, along with a similar silver coin, the siglos (from Ancient Greek: σίγλος, Hebrew: שֶׁקֶל, shékel) represented the first bimetallic monetary standard. [5]
The use and export of silver coinage, along with soldiers paid in coins, contributed to the Athenian Empire's dominance of the region in the 5th century BC. The silver used was mined in southern Attica at Laurium and Thorikos by a huge workforce of slave labour. A major silver vein discovery at Laurium in 483 BC led to the huge expansion of the ...
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 ...
According to Herodotus, the Lydians were the first people to use gold and silver coins and the first to establish retail shops in permanent locations. [43] It is not known, however, whether Herodotus meant that the Lydians were the first to use coins of pure gold and pure silver or the first precious metal coins in general. [44]
Coins were an important means of disseminating this image throughout the Empire. [12] Coins often attempted to make the emperor appear god-like through associating the emperor with attributes normally seen in divinities, or emphasizing the special relationship between the emperor and a particular deity by producing a preponderance of coins ...
Persian Empire. Ancient emperors were in the subjects game — more people, more profit — and few players played it better than the Persians. According to Guinness World Records, the Persian ...
The daric was a gold coin which, along with a similar silver coin, the siglos, represented the bimetallic monetary standard of the Achaemenid Empire. [ 1 ] Cyrus the Great (550–530 BC) introduced coins to the Persian Empire after 546 BC, following his conquest of Lydia and the defeat of its king Croesus , who had put in place the first ...