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Gods on Coins: Ancient Greece,
Rome, Byzantium On 18 December 2007 at the Rotunda of the Winter Palace an exhibition was opened displaying coins dating from antiquity to the middle ages from the State Hermitage Museum collection. The exhibition shows items which enable the visitor to trace the main stages of religious development of the Greeks, Romans and Byzantines, detailed in the types of coins, and the choice of gods or patron saints. Since coins are monuments of an official nature, depicting only the themes which reflected the concepts of those people who produced them, and in a time of centralized power, the ideology and politics of the rulers. Numismatic material is complemented with items of applied or fine art from ancient and mediaeval times, which demonstrate the similarities of iconographic features and the link between depictions on coins with famous and respected sculptures, icons and mosaics. The coins from Ancient Greece represent the gods of Olympia and their attributes, and also the gods who were the patrons of nature, cities, agriculture and craftsmanship. Ancient Rome joined in its pantheon of gods, the gods of other peoples who became a part of the Roman state or where near neighbours, deifying many moral concepts and virtues. With the affirmation of Christianity on coins there appear Christian symbols: the chrism (the monogram of Jesus Christ made up of the Greek letters Õ and Ð), the cross and the hand of God. Christian imagery on Byzantine coins conclude the display: depictions of Christ, the Virgin in various iconographic settings; patron saints of the emperors and city patrons, initially martyrs and later, soldiers. The State Hermitage Publishing House has prepared an illustrated, academic
catalogue for the exhibition. The author of the text is the exhibition
curator V.V. Guruleva, a senior researcher at the Numismatic Department
of the State Hermitage Museum. |
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Copyright
© 2006 State Hermitage Museum |
