Drachmas Doubloons and Dollars: The History of Money
(Exhibition Home)
Ancient Greece and the Mediterranean World
Introduction
Early Greek Coins - Experimentation With Coinage - Coinage and Trade - Athenian Coinage - Everyday Coinage - Coinage and War - Alexander the Great - Hellenistic Portrait Coins
Everyday Coinage

Not all coins were large and valuable. From the beginning, tiny silver coins were issued by cities to pay their citizens for jury service or various military activities. By the 4th century, small silver coins were replaced by larger bronze coins that soon became the most common form of coinage in daily use.
Silver obol of Aradus in Phoenicia (390-370 BC).
Silver tetradrachmon of Sinope, struck a second time with a small stamp bearing a head, presumably as a re-issue.
Bronze coin of Syracuse with bull and dolphin (4th century BC).
Bronze coin of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II of Egypt (146-116 BC). Egypt's closed currency system included a variety of coins, such as this large bronze piece.
Black Attic vase with hoard of Athenian small change, found in Attica in the 1930s. In antiquity, savings were often buried in ceramic containers.
1956.87.1
1956.87.90