Obverse: Head of the Apollo Myrtous Facing
Right, Crowned with Myrtle
Reverse: Flowering Silphium Plant
Kyrenaica was on a plateau in present-day Libya,
settled by Greeks from the island of Thera about
630 B.C. Its principal city was Kyrene. In the
winter of 332/31 B.C., the Kyrenaians entered
into an alliance with Alexander the Great, and
from that time until it was acquired by Ptolemaic
Egypt, the city of Kyrene issued a series of coins
with the head of Zeus Ammon on the obverse.
Ammon was the chief imperial god of ancient
Egypt, who became known to the Greeks through
their colonization of Kyrene and identified with
their chief god Zeus. His was the most important
cult in Kyrene, where a Hellenized version of him
was worshipped as Zeus Ammon. In Greek cities
he was usually depicted as a Zeus-like figure but
with the ram's horns of the Egyptian Ammon
added. On the reverse of this coin, the silphium
plant is depicted. The city's wealth depended
upon the now-extinct silphium plant, grown only
in Kyrene, which became the regular device for
the city's coins. Its stalk was eaten as a
vegetable, and the sap from its stem and root
was used as a seasoning, a perfume, and a
contraceptive drug.
How many hands have touched a coin in your
pocket or your purse? What eras and lands have
the coin traversed on its journey into our
possession? As we reach into our pockets to pull
out some change, we rarely hesitate to think of
who touched the coin before us, or where the
coin will venture to after us. More than money,
coins are a symbol of the state that struck them,
of a specific time and place, whether currency in
the age we live or an artifact of a long forgotten
empire. This stunning hand-struck coin reveals
an expertise of craftsmanship and intricate
sculptural detail that is often lacking in
contemporary machine-made currencies. This
coin is more than an artifact; it is a memorial an
ancient city passed down from the hands of one
generation to another, from one civilization to
another.
