It was natural for the city of Athens to place the head of its patron Athena on the obverse of its coins and display her sacred symbol – the owl – on the reverse. Adopting the owl on their coins also symbolises the Athenians connection with their goddess. Scholars do not know which came first: the name of the city or that of the goddess. The Greek inscription AθE (‘of the Athenians’), which appears on the reverse of this coin, comprises the first three letters of the names of both goddess and city.
On this coin, which is quite worn, Athena wears a crested helmet decorated with three olive leaves. Like the olive spray on the reverse, this references Athena’s mythical gift to Attica of olives, which became the city’s main export. Known as ‘owls’, these thick, heavy high-relief silver coins were spread throughout the ancient world by Athenian commerce and empire and, as such, were used as international currency until the third century BCE.
