# Greek: writing on an ancient coin



## Chazzwozzer

Hi,

A friend of mine has found a coin somewhere in an ancient site of Turkey. However, we have no idea how old it is and what it says on it or even if it's worth taking to the museum.

As I'm having my camera serviced now, I don't have any photos to upload here. 

On the head, there's a priest-looking man holding a crucifix and on the other side, there's a text scriptted in Greek letters.

So I'll try to type the letters I can see, and for those letters who are not clearly seen or understandable, I'll just put a *?*. _(Only a couple of letters are clear, all the others need looking so closely and carefully.)_

Here we go,

*?τκω?     *(τ is actually not clearly seen. Half of the letter is destroyed as it's on the edge. It kind of looks like *t *actually.)
 *ελθεω? *(Although I typed it as low-case omega, the letter is more like W)*
SιυεγSR? *(S and R? I can even swear I can only see these two Latin letters!)*
ΜΑΙωE *(Omega is almost like the one I typed in the second line, it's more like W. On the right edge, as you see, I left a question mark as it looks like )

Does it ring any bell?

Ekin


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## ireney

Hi there Ekin

I'm afraid it doesn't ring any bells I'm afraid. Any chance you can post a picture of the coin or something?


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## Chazzwozzer

ireney said:


> Hi there Ekin
> 
> I'm afraid it doesn't ring any bells I'm afraid. Any chance you can post a picture of the coin or something?


Sorry to hear that.

Yes, of course, I'll post a pictue of it as soon as possible.

By the way, this is how it kind of looks like, just the figure is clearer and the colour is more brown.


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## Qcumber

Chazzwozzer, you don't need a camera. Use your scanner. Place the medal on the glass. You'll see the scan picture will be OK.


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## Chazzwozzer

Qcumber said:


> Chazzwozzer, you don't need a camera. Use your scanner. Place the medal on the glass. You'll see the scan picture will be OK.



Brilliant idea! I never thought it would look good.

*Pictures enlarged.*


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## modus.irrealis

Because of the Christian symbols, I figured it would be Byzantine, so I was looking through some sites of Byzantine coins, e.g. http://www.wegm.com/coins/byindex.htm seems to be pretty good. Anyway, there's a lot of strange things going on there, like using what must be Latin letters for Greek. But I'm pretty sure it ends in (using standard Greek letters)

?????
?????Β(Α)
ΣΙΛΕΥΣΡΩ
ΜΑΙΩΝ

which means "Emperor of the Romans."

I think you're right about the cross instead of T, since it seems a cross was placed before the name, which would start with ΚΩ, meaning it's got to be one of the many Constantines, but there's not enough letters to get that name in there, so if it is there maybe it's a short form.

For the rest, my guess would be that the second line starts off with ΕΝΘΕΩ "in God" which seems to show up on some coins.

Actually, looking through all the Constantines at the site, I think your coin seems a lot like the one at http://www.wegm.com/coins/constantinevii.htm, the second last one, which according to the site, is

+C(OηST') / ЄηΘ(Є)Ob(A) / SILЄVS(R) / OmЄO(η)

Replacing those η with N would make it make sense, and mean "Constantine in God Emperor of the Romans"


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## ireney

Gah! I am blind! I cannot make out what it says  Any possibility for an enlarged picture/scan of the coin? 
It's definitely Byzantine but it's easy to account for the Roman letters escpecially if we're talking about early Byzantine period (remember that Greek wasn't always the official language of the Easter Roman Empire) Plus, the wonderful link modus provided us with has this informative piece on numericals


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## Chazzwozzer

ireney said:


> Any possibility for an enlarged picture/scan of the coin?


I've just enlarged it as large as I could and replaced with the old ones at #6.



modus.irrealis said:


> +C(OηST') / ЄηΘ(Є)Ob(A) / SILЄVS(R) / OmЄO(η)
> 
> Replacing those η with N would make it make sense, and mean "Constantine in God Emperor of the Romans"


That's totally amazing, modus!

The website you've provided shows that it dates back to 945-c.950, when Byzantine scholars recorded and preserved many valuable ancient Greek and Roman texts _(843–1025) _which is also before East-West Schism.



ireney said:


> It's definitely Byzantine but it's easy to account for the Roman letters escpecially if we're talking about early Byzantine period (remember that Greek wasn't always the official language of the Easter Roman Empire)


What time period is usually considered to be early ages of Easter Roman Empire and when did they do away with the Lattin letters?


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## ireney

I can definitely say that I can't yet say who's the emperor it depicts. Yet! 

Early Byzantine period ends in 843 AD (obviously it's a set date).

They dropped the latin alphabet early on (some two centuries after Constantine the first if I'm not mistaken) but when it comes to coins, a mixture of both alphabets continued to be used throughout the time)


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## Chazzwozzer

ireney said:


> But when it comes to coins, a mixture of both alphabets continued to be used throughout the time


It was what I wondered, it's now clearer for me. Thanks.


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