2021-09-08 Wed

The first coins to be struck appeared in c. 650 BCE in what is now western Turkey. These coins were little more than blobs of electrum. They were cast to fit precisely within a measured system of weights and then struck with an official punch on one side.

The first coins to carry any sort of inscription finally appeared sometime during the last quarter of the seventh century BCE. The very first coin to bear an inscription was struck somewhere in the western coastal area of modern Turkey.

Its obverse depicts a spotted stag walking right with its head lowered; the inscription, written backward in an archaic form of Greek, reads PhANOS EMI SEIMA. It is generally translated as “I am the badge (or sign) of Phanes” which is more or less a city official or mint place Phanes.

Image Courtesy: coinweek.com