The Greeks: Athenian Owls

Athens was the city state that symbolizes the Greek civilization.  Thus, the coinage of that city, the classic Athenian silver tetradrachm is the most widely recognized ancient coin among the general public.

Because of Athen’s political and economical power, owls were the first widely used international coin. The coins were handled by Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Democritus, Hippocrates, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, and others whose thinking formed the very foundation of Western civilization. The term heads and tails came from that coinage where on the obverse of the coin, the bust of Athena, the patron Goddess of Athens can be found.  Her Owl, with a olive branch can be found in the reverse.  This theme lasted for 500 years, until the Roman domination.

According to ancient Greek mythology, Athena was the daughter of Zeus and his first wife, Metis, whose name meant "wisdom." Metis forewarned Zeus that their first son would be more powerful than Zeus himself, which unsettled Zeus so much that when Metis became pregnant he swallowed Metis and their unborn child. This gave him a headache, which he cured by splitting his head open with an axe. From the wound came forth Athena, fully grown.

Athena's may have evolved from the Eye Goddess of Neolithic peoples. The wide staring eyes of the Eye Goddess were all-seeing and all-knowing. Along with being the goddess of wisdom and warfare, in ancient Greece Athena was also known as an eye goddess. She was described as the "flashing eyed." The large almond-shaped frontal eye on early Owl coins may thus have religious significance. Athena's attribute, the owl, is still a symbol of wisdom today, though at different places and in different times, owls have symbolized other things, including dread and death.

The owl species depicted on Athenian Owls is the Athena Noctua, also called the Little Owl or Minerva Owl. Standing 6 to 8 inches and weighing 2.5 to 4.5 ounces, they range from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia. They cock their heads exactly as on the best Owl tetradrachm dies.

No coin better epitomizes Athens than the Owl, and no city was more central to Greece than Athens. Greece, in turn, was where the foundation of Western way of life.  Our philosophy, politics, education, mathematics, science, medicine, art, theater, architecture, and sport all originated in ancient Greece from relatively inchoate antecedents. The Greeks masterfully developed the very substance of our civilization from what they inherited from Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Below are the two specimens from my collection, minted 400 years apart.  Personally, I like the classical look of the first coin; even though Athena’s helmet on the second one is breathtaking.

Athens, ca. 449-413 BC. Silver tetradrachm.
Denomination : Silver tetradrachm.
Size : 23.7 x 24.3 mm Weight : 17.20 grams.
Reference : Sear-2526.
Grade : gVF and better centered than usual with a significant part of the crest showing.
Obverse : Head of Athena right.
Reverse : Owl standing right, with an olive sprig and crescent moon over its shoulder, with a AQE to the right.
Ex-Calgary Coin

ATTICA, Athens. Circa 168/5-50 BC. AR New Style Tetradrachm (30mm, 16.74 gm). Struck circa 136/5 BC. Helmeted head of Athena right / A-QE, owl standing right on amphora; magistrates MI-KI and QEO-FRA; Nike in quadriga right in right field, M on amphora, SW below amphora; all within wreath. Cf. Thompson 315-323 (unlisted dies). EF, lightly toned. Ex -CNG