Happy Sabbath Folks ! Now in a world where Money Talks, this was also the case in the ancient world. So as we in our times are about to embark on the road to a digital currency, were certainly there are things in the works to make one to rule them all. This brings to life the theories of the Mark of the Beast, we will see that back in the day it was different because the coins were worth their weight in gold. Back then it was solid Gold coins called names Denarii and Daric, that did most of the talking. So for us getting a good foundation and building knowledge on the coming research of Biblical currencies, it will help us understand our Bibles better AND is a preparation too, for an article we have coming on the ancient Greek, Roman and Hebrew coins found in the soil in Southern Africa! Remember, as we see it after a certain time the coins along with many different ancient cultures got `relocated off the continent` (so too speak), so it is hard to pinpoint when and how that exactly happened. Likely different events over hundreds if not thousands of years.
But, regardless of going into that BIG topic - there are things found in the ground in Africa, where it has no right being found mind you. This enforces the theory that Africa was the main stage for Biblical events. There is a lot of history that needs unravelling here. Time would be an easy culprit as to why we are finding these things now, and then its the untrustworthy human factor, like peoples memories that for sure played a major part. But culture and things like cultural attire is a great help in mapping some of these events and identifying Biblical cultures. So anyways, this article is a warm-up of the things we will be discussing for the next few articles. Now it is important to understand the value of each coin in question. Because some of these coins have been found in the soil in Africa! So Lets Dive!
Do Remember when the athlete gets his or her medal at the Olympics or wherever, they always range them Gold, Silver and Bronze (Copper). And guess what, they did the same in the ancient world. One could even say we have this order from them, as the mineral in question was ranged and rarest as gold. So lets dive into the world of Ancient Currencies!
Now, the OLDEST coin known to us (contemporary historians) is thought to be the Coin found in modern Turkey, and are called the Lydian Lion coins. We will look closer at that one just now. But we can mentioned that other ancient coins often found are Persian daric, (which we believe originated on the Continent), the infamous Tong Bei (bronze coins from China) and the various forms of the Gold Denari (Arabic and or Roman). All of these serve as MAJOR archeological sources of history, but we can certainly get these wrong at times. Especially if one of the above are marked as the wrong historical Empire. Still coins from the ground will often give you this, information about the people that struck them, like culture, language, government, religion, economics and very often a ruler or a person of cultural importance depicted on the coin.
Now the Lydian Lion Coin, poses to us a Great Conundrum and enforces our theories of the ties most ancient Biblical Civilisations have to the Continent of Africa. You see, there is a Lion depicted here, which are nowhere to be found on the remains of the Greek Isles in Europe! Or even anywhere in Europe really. Lions are in Africa. There are theories that there used to be Lions, we are not so sure, we think Ancient Greece had here major cities spread on the Northern African continent and the Isles in the way North, are but a shadow of the Ancient Past. Much like Egypt, we can only find remnants in the Great Deserted and dried-up areas of North Africa. But it was not always so. Just look at the cultures hidden in the sands and etched into mountains of areas like Ennedi Massif in Chad, and then you will also make space for theories of missing Giga Lakes, you can clearly get the picture. The African past was green and well-watered !
Now this coin, the Lydia Lion Coin, dates back to the times of The Temple of Artemis and the historical city of Ephesus. Dates have been thrown around like 800 Before Christ, which makes this particular coin the oldest of its kind. This may or may not be so, we find the coin itself way more interesting than what our contemporary historians claim this coin stems from. Lions are in Africa and India. Made from Electrum, which is a naturally formed alloy of Gold and Silver., the lion was stamped on the coin ass a seal and declaration of its value. Apparently minted at Lydia (with King Alyattes seal on the Coin). Although, we believe this was from the Continent when Sahara had more water, IE when the Mediterranean Sea was much larger. Another article, when time permits. We have perhaps got a whole ocean to fill in here. This particular coin and history is connected with King Midas (touch of Gold and all that), but this like so many other things about ancient history and their purported dates cannot make sense. Because King Midas of Phrygia (Connected to Phoenicians and coin image further down), lived some 800 years Before Christ. And this coin is dated eariler, which makes us think its older. Way older, and from a time of active trade on the African continent. Greece, Egypt, Persia and Asia traded freely.
Now the First Gold Coin contemporary historians have identified, is from the Persian Empire called the Persian DARIC. The Persian Empire we believe was on the Continent (OR hear us out, when India was connected to Africa, someone might have split the sea and land area there, hint - is was not us). This coin should be regarded on par with The Roman Denarii, The Greek Siglos (σίγλος,) and Ancient Hebrew Shekel (שֶׁקֶל). Now note the similarities between the Lydian Lion Coin and the Daric. The same personalised stamps can be gleaned, moving Persia back to the continent with Greece, where they both belong. The Daric Type I and II would have been under the or close to the times of King Cyrus the Great, but it was King Darius I who introduced a thick and very valuable Gold Coin, equalling 20 pieces of silver in its weight (8,4 grams), with the purest quality imaginable (research shows 95.8% pure gold). So just to mention, later on came Byzantine Empire thinner gold coins with Roman crosses on then, again later towards the 700-hundreds came the silver dirham and gold dinar of the Caliphates. Then as we head more towards the 11 hundreds came the Tong Bei of the Shang Dynasty in China.
So going back to the oldest coins that we know of, we have a coin supposedly from the People of Aegina, said to be one of the islands in Greece which makes more sense that as they would have this sea creature on their doorstep. Be it on the Northern Africa islands or the sea among the Greek Islands we know so well. The Aeginas traded with Lydia and Ionia, and used a coin called Aegina Sea Turtle. Heavy and thick with a turtle engraved in high relief on one side, and the very recognisable square punched into its back, reveals this as a a coin spread far and wide in the ancient world.
Now just to give you an idea of how static the historians and ancient researchers are, when a theory proposed by historian Donal Kagan (1932-2021), that the King of Argos Pheidon was the first man to strike silver coins on the island of Aegina in the 700 hundreds Before Christ, he was highly contested in his theory. He was only asking for a few hundred years, and the pushback was immense. And imagine us in here are trying to move much bigger land-marks and border stones than him. Imagine the opposition that will be, making history just a little bit more coloured. In line with scholars that are able to paint the past, we have someone ANYONE with interest of ancient Greece and or Egypt should look into. Professor Martin Bernal (1937-2010) tried his very best to show people (even laymen) that these where cultures rooted in Africans, hence his term AfroAsiatic... All logged in his masterpiece Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (1987), followed up with no less then two more volumes. But even a comprehensive work like that, basically giving proof of the connection and almost kinship between Greeks and Egyptians. Its not enough. People still need more.
Now, moving on to some other coins we have to mention before we have a closer look at Lydians (Greeks) and Spartans alike, there is the coinage that was called a Nobleman's tax token, the Ionian Hemiobol. We are now about 600 years Before Christ, even though we are quite certain the origins of these coins are way older. The coins of Cyme were called Hemiobols and were often stamped with a horses head, made from a mere fraction of silver. Some say these Greek examples of coinage are among the the worlds oldest coins, and that may be so.
Before we move on we should briefly mention the Karshapana, called the first Indian Coin, from West Asia and made in a process probably learned from the Chinese and the Ying Yuan. Famously called Puranas or Pana, these coins were not circular, stamped bars of metal with various designs. You can see some had symbols on them, others had many punches and their corners cut off. The other one, perhaps inspired the Indian coins, is the Ying Yuan, created most likely a lot sooner then the Greek coins. Before they apparently used cowrie shells, but around the same time gold coins started appearing and issued by the Chu State.
These coins in the image are the Ying Yuan, with examples from 600 years Before Christ. These were rough squares of gold, stamped with inscriptions of weight and monetary unit - a yuan. So we can see the idea of money and its value is something that has not really been challenged up until this day and age, where currency is set by trade and seemingly other factors that would be laughed at in the ancient world. Things should be worth their weight in gold right? Well, what is a digital currency worth then? How can it be measured?
So back to the ancient peoples of Greece, and wherever the Lydians were based, and if they as a people truly tie into the North-African desert. Modern Turkey, modern Greece and Northern Africa are not far apart. We are imagining a time when these now largely deserted areas had lots more water and inland seas, allowing extensive trade AND these areas connections with Atlantis that sunk under the ocean... The place according to Plato Atlantis got flooded, we think more like buried in the Desert. Perhaps there was a flooding prior who knows, but there is certainly desert now. Thinking about these events and having places like Richat Structure in mind for Atlantis. One cannot say it is too far-fetched. As you will see these people of Atlantis had a STRONG culture and do tie nicely into the Men of Old, The Men of Renown. The Nephilim. The ones that taught men about smelting weapons and currency, and of things like how to conduct war on mass. Their traces and marks on humanity are not that hard to find when you know what to look for. Now, if you go to see these settlements they had around the world, like in Konya Turkey. You will see things that are even hard to explain how they did it today, sites like the one in Turkey with a massive rock-carved relief of Tarhunda - in honour of God of Plenty and Abundance, giving gifts to the smaller and lesser people. However, we could be talking thousands of years in timepan here, and one does not necessarily go with the other.
Now wherever they the Greeks were based - archeologists have claimed that the Lydians started the worlds very first gold refinery, and perhaps the refinery of coins did really start there, at Sardis (likely not ancient Sardis). And the way they refined the Gold was quite something. They mixed electrum dust that was mined and salt in a clay pot, leaving it to heat to a constant 200-250 degrees (slow-burn), just below the alloys melting point. The iron from the clay would react with the salt creating gasses (ferric chloride and chlorine) which reacted with the silver in the electrum to form silver chloride. This method took about 3 days to extract the silver from 5kgs of natural electrum dust, and left behind very pure gold.
Now seeing these ancient coins and trying to trace their history when some researchers accept the Biblical narrative and others do not. Then we would say ALL their research becomes tainted off the unaccepted fact that we certainly are not the peak of civilisations, and just as the Bible tells us, there were others before us. And they are not around any longer, so they must have, in their own way, each and every one of them failed. Now moving one, before we do some Biblical coins, we are going to look at some other coins, not very well known, but that bear the likeness and image of Africans, depicted on the coins themselves.
Just look at coins like this one, a Silver Tetradrachm, reportedly from the island of Naxos (dated about 400 before Christ), and you will notice the likeness on the coin of an African man, enjoying his drink (presumably wine). This is supposedly depictions of the Greek god Dionysius, god of pleasure and wine. Interesting that he should be depicted as a man with African features. The Island Naxos was said to be todays Sicily, we are not so sure about that. Why make a coin that depicts this when there are no people around that bear this likeness? The Coin may have been found there, but no we think it hailed from further south. Anyways, according to the Legends Dionysius had a strong presence at Naxos, supposedly meeting his wife Ariadne there. Now remember, these would be stories from the men of old, men of renown. And Dionysius would be no different. These, to us are all traces of the Nephilim, the ones chained at the neck - and yes even the mighty Greeks and their never-ending stream of superb logic and culture, even all of these will bow to Christ.
Moving on to other interesting coins, and, one from the Macedonian Empire, in the form of a silver coin (17.7grams), from ancient Sermyle. This city was also called Sermylicus Sinus by Psudo Scylax. This ancient text Psudo Scylax, is either describing the ancient sea route down and around the length of Africa, from the east and up the West African Coast, OR its describing the internal OLD of Northern Africa before the waters changed inside the Northern African territories. Sermylia was said to be close to modern Ormylia, and we do believe we are most certainly on African soil now. Again, imagine the deserted Saharan areas, which used to be bustling Greek cities and islands. Engravings in rock at Ennedi Massif will confirm this in time.
Then we have the memorial coin of King Midas himself, depicted on one side as having nappy hair (only black African males get this kind of beard), and Midas was the King of the Phrygians - which one could argue were Phoenicians (IE South-East Africans). Now setting these contemporary historic theories of the coins aside, we do have many other interesting coins that do not get nearly as much attention as the top ones we have discussed just now. So if you head back to ancient Greece, and you start to get into the famous names like Sparta and Lacedaemon (city-state in Greece), which were on all accounts situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia. From all the writings that have survived and are in our possession, we can get a rare peak into the far ancient past. Sparta as we now know it, a military power it would rise to become, and as we know them now as the Warrior Spartans. Battle of Thermopyllae (300 rose up against Xerxes) and all that. Now the Spartans were kinda unique in ancient Greece as they were gong-ho focused on military activities and had mastered the purest excellence of conducting battle. Remember, the Greeks were known to be philosophers and thinkers, not so with these men. They were warriors. The inhabitants in Sparta were classified as Spartiates (Spartan citizens, they had full rights), Mothakes where non Spartan free men raised as Spartans, Periokioi where freed men, and Helots were state-owned servers or slaves from Non-Spartan local population. The Spartiates - Spartans underwent a rigorous training and education regiment, and the Spartan Phalanx were thought to be the pinnacle of men in battle. And here is the thing, Spartan women had way more rights and equality than elsewhere during ancient antiquity. Which is quite the starch contrast to all the other ancient civilisations and patriarchal societies. The ONLY other who we can say treated women as being of any worth (off which they are of great and irreplaceable worth), would be Christ Himself. How He viewed women was game changing and set quite the example for us. But that is again another topic.
Now back to the Greek Spartans and the Homoioi (the males of Sparta), who were of peers or men of equals. And these ones were trained from a young age, for battle and went through many hectic challenges and carefully crafted into some seriously well trained warriors. in battle they could not be equalled to perhaps another physically well trained soldier like the Zulu Impi soldiers, though even above them in swordsmanship and tactics. The Strength of Spartas Hoplite soldiers was renowned throughout all of Greece. And here is the thing, Greeks and Persian were fighting a lot, called the Greco Persian wars, that happened some 400 years before Christ. We have battles like during the Peloponnesians War, then Spartas defeat at Thebes (Egypt) and the Battle of Leuctra in 370 Before Christ, which kinda ended the Spartans reign and thirst for battle. Though they remained a political ploy for the Greeks almost until Christ came.
So are we pulling all this we are saying from from thin air? Not so brothers and sister, we have read Herodotus, and if you read The Persian Wars, there you will find quotes of what these people looked like, and surprise surprise, they were not white but described as a combination of Phoenicians (SouthEast Africans) and Minyans (Greeks), all described by Herodotus as being a people of colour. If you want to read up, try to find George Rawlinson (1812-1902) translation from 1942, if you go to Book 4 and Melpomene 4.143-4.159 you will find many great quotes on the Greeks (and the different types of Greeks we had back then).
Moving on, an interesting comment was made by the German historian Ernst Robert Curtius (1886-1956), has this to say about the Lydians (Curtius, 1948):
"The Lydians became on land what the Phoenicians were by sea, the mediators between Hellas and Asia."
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