COMETS AND METEORITES ON ANCIENT COINS
Coin Week
June 23 2014
By Mike Markowitz on June 23, 2014 2:41 PM
Ancient Coin Series
The night sky was really important to ancient people. This can be
hard for us to understand, living as we do in a world where light
pollution denies us a clear view of the stars. What people saw in
the sky – or thought they saw – they expressed as myths, as symbols,
and even as designs on their coins. The crescent moon and spiky stars,
for example, appear frequently on ancient coins.
Most ancient cultures believed in astrology – the notion that changes
observed in the heavens above were strongly linked to events on earth
below. Along with the reassuringly predictable motions of the stars and
planets, more troubling things sometimes appeared in the sky. Rare and
unpredictable, comets and meteors were particularly potent symbols,
and their appearance on a few ancient coins has sparked the interest
of historians and astronomers as well as numismatists.
We know now that comets are large “dirty snowballs” with eccentric
orbits that sometimes bring them close enough to the sun that long
tails of gas and dust reflect enough sunlight to make them visible.
The Greek word kometes means “long-haired.” One Latin term for comet
was stella crinita – “hairy star.”
Aristotle thought comets were the result of combustible gas igniting
in the upper atmosphere. Some ancients believed they were wandering
planets. But many believed they were omens of natural or political
catastrophe – wars, plagues, famines, and especially the death of
rulers. This was a potential PR problem if you happened to be a king
and a comet appeared.
Mithridates’ Comets
Mithridates VI, King of Pontus. The image of Pegasus on the reverse
may be a reference to the comet that appeared at his birth.
Mithridates VI “The Great,” (134-63 BCE), was the king of Pontus, a
kingdom on the southern coast of the Black Sea. His ancestry included
both the rulers of Persia and the successors of Alexander. He ruled
for 56 years, conquered a great empire, and was a master of spin
control. In a world where only a small elite could read, imagery on
coins was an important official propaganda channel.
In the year Mithridates was born, a comet appeared in the constellation
of Pegasus. Justinus, a 4th century historian, reports that “it burned
so brightly for seventy days that the entire sky seemed to be on
fire.” In 119 BCE, when the 15-year-old Mithridates deposed his mother
and seized the throne for himself, another comet appeared. Uh-oh!
On his silver coinage, Mithridates made Pegasus his personal badge,
an indirect reference to the constellation where the comet of
134 was seen. A starburst and crescent in the field reinforce the
celestial connection. Small bronze coins of this period, which bear
no inscriptions, show a horsehead and starburst, and a starburst
with a long tail. One reverse, often catalogued as a “palm branch”
(a traditional symbol of victory) looks very much like a comet.
Tigranes’ Comet
Under Tigranes II (140-55 BCE), Armenia became a great power in the
East, stretching from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Tigranes
fought successive wars against the Parthian and Seleukid empires and
the Roman Republic. On his abundant silver and bronze coinage, Tigranes
appears wearing a distinctive Armenian “tiara” or crown ornamented with
an eight-pointed starburst between two eagles. On some rare issues,
the starburst has a definite long tail. Modern astronomers calculate
that Halley’s Comet made its closest approach to the sun (perihelion)
on 6 August 87 BCE. In Babylon, it was visible for a month.
KINGS of ARMENIA. Tigranes II ‘the Great’. 95-56 BC. AR Drachm (20mm,
3.98 g, 12h). Satellite mint of Maskos (Damascus). Draped bust right,
wearing five-pointed Armenian tiara decorated with comet star and
volute.
By placing this image on his coinage, Tigranes, in effect, declared
to his subjects that far from fearing the omen in the sky, he embraced
it, and wore it as a symbol of his new era.
Caesar’s Comet
Roman custom prescribed that funeral observances for powerful elite
men be celebrated with gladiatorial “games.” Four months after Julius
Caesar’s assassination (15 March 44 BCE) his nephew and adopted son,
Octavian, duly organized a 10-day spectacular (July 20-30). In his
commentaries, Octavian writes:
“On the very days of my games, a comet was seen for seven days in
the northern section of the sky. It arose about the eleventh hour of
the day, and was bright and visible from all countries. The crowd
believed that this…signified that the soul of Caesar had been
received among…
the immortal gods…”
Chinese sources confirm this sighting-probably the brightest daylight
comet in recorded history. It was “non-periodic” (a comet that does
not return), and may have disintegrated as it approached the sun. By
promoting the idea that the comet was Caesar’s soul ascending to the
heavens, Octavian diminished the risk that people would interpret
the event as an omen of impending doom. He ordered gold stars affixed
above the foreheads of deified Caesar’s cult images, as we see on a
denarius of 17 BCE.
(Left) Augustus Denarius (18mm, 3.01 g, 8h). Rome mint. M. Sanquinius,
moneyer. Struck 17 BC. Laureate head of Divus Julius right, comet
above. RIC I 338; RSC 1. (Right) Augustus. 27 BC-AD 14. AR Denarius
(19mm, 3.80 g, 6h). Spanish mint – Emerita. Struck circa 19-18 BC.
CAESAR AVGVSTVS, head right, wearing oak wreath / DIVVS * IVLIVS across
field, comet with eight rays and tail. RIC I 37a; RSC 98; BMCRE 323-5.
The best-known representation of Caesar’s comet, and perhaps the most
detailed comet image on any ancient coin, appears on a denarius of
about 19 BCE from the mint of Emerita (Merida, Spain). The comet,
accompanied by the inscription “Julius the God” is depicted as a
pellet with eight rays, one of which extends as a shaggy tail.
The Black Stone of Emesa
Ancient people regarded stones that fell from the sky as objects
of wonder, and often as manifestations of the divine. Some of the
earliest-known iron weapons were forged from pieces of nickel-iron
meteorites. The Syrian town of Emesa (now the war-torn city of Homs)
had a temple enshrining a conical black stone that was almost certainly
a stony meteorite. On 8 June 218 CE, through a bizarre series of
dynastic intrigues, the 14-year-old hereditary high priest of this
temple, Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus, became the emperor of Rome. He
is known to history by the Latinized name of his god: Elagabalus.
His first official act was to transfer the sacred meteorite to
Rome’s main temple, the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (“Jupiter
Best and Greatest”) on the Capitoline Hill. This is commemorated on a
beautiful gold aureus, showing the stone borne on a four-horse chariot,
or quadriga. A shroud, richly embroidered with an eagle and stars,
covers the stone, while an eight-pointed star in the field above
alludes to its celestial origin.
(Background) Elagabalus, 218 – 222 Aureus 220-222, AV 6.50 g. IMP
ANTONINVS PIVS AVG Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust r. Rev.
CONSERVATOR AVG Slow quadriga l., on which is the Stone of Emesa
surmounted by eagle; in upper l. field, star. C 18. BMC 197. RIC 61.
(Foreground) Space geeks may note that the stone has nearly the same
shape as the Soyuz re-entry vehicle used by astronauts returning from
the International Space Station.
The conical shape is often seen in meteorites that have survived the
fiery passage through the atmosphere.
Following the assassination of Elagabalus in 222 CE, the stone was
deported back to Emesa, but it makes a brief reappearance in 253 on
the rare coinage of Uranius Antoninus, an obscure usurper known only
from his coins. He may have been another temple priest. The stone
was probably destroyed in the 4th century CE, when surviving pagan
temples were converted into churches. A mosque now occupies the site.
The Great Comet of 1106
The best-documented appearance of a comet on a Byzantine coin is the
reverse of a very rare electrum aspron trachy struck at Thessaloniki
for Alexios Komnenos. Alexios’ daughter Anna was a talented historian,
and she reports that the comet was the largest ever seen; it appeared
in the daytime, and remained visible for 40 days.
>From other sources we know the comet was first sighted on 2 February
1106. Michael Hendy, a leading expert on the coinage of this period
wrote:
“[T]he star of the specimen in question …is placed in a most
inconvenient position between the Emperor and the Virgin who is
attempting to crown him – it seems to be almost an afterthought
despite its rather elaborate form.”
Astronomers now think this comet, designated X1106/C1, was a “sun
grazer” that broke up, with parts returning as the Great Comet of
1882 and Comet Ikeya-Seki in 1965.
It’s worth noting that some numismatists believe the Supernova of
1054 is recorded on Byzantine coins of Constantine IX, but that is
a story for another day…
References
Barrett, A.A. “Observations of Comets in Greek and Roman Sources
Before AD 410.” Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada
72:2 (1978).
Bellemare, Pierre M. “Meteorite Sparks a Cult.” Journal of the Royal
Astronomical Society of Canada 90:5/6 (1996).
Caesar’s Comet (‘s_Comet). Web.
Accessed 7 June 2014.
Gurzadyan, V.G. and R. Vardanyan. “Halley’s Comet on the Coins of
Armenian King Tigranes?” Astronomy and Geophysics 45 (2004).
Hendy, Michael. Coinage and Money in the Byzantine Empire 1081-1206.
Dumbarton Oaks (1969) Molnar. Michael R. “Mithradates Used Comets
on Coins as Propaganda Device.” Celator 11:6 (1997) Ramsey, John
T. “Mithridates, the Banner of Ch’ih-Yu and the Comet Coin.” Harvard
Studies in Classical Philology 99 (1999) Scott Kenneth. “The Sidus
Iulium and the Apotheosis of Caesar.”
Classical Philology 36:3 (1941)