Rams, sheep and goats on coins

Prosit · August 19, 2011, 05:14:04 PM

If you ever figure that out please let me know....it escapes me too.

Dale

Quote from: coffeetime on August 19, 2011, 02:58:30 PM
I've yet to work out the subtleties of the Texan hierarchy.

<k> · August 26, 2011, 11:47:08 AM

China. Inner Mongolia, Meng Chiang. World War II Japanese Occupation Issue Chiao (10 Cents), Year 738 (1943). Aluminium.

"Commonly mislabelled as a pattern, this is in fact a currency issue struck in Japan for use in occupied Inner Mongolia. Due to maritime transportation problems during World War II, the shipment containing the majority of this mintage never arrived. It is believed the ship carrying nearly the entire mintage was torpedoed by allied submarines and the cargo was lost, hence very few examples of this issue have survived, with reportedly only about 12 examples known."

<k> · January 02, 2012, 09:20:22 PM

USSR, 1991, 5 roubles. Markhor goat.

Figleaf · January 03, 2012, 12:49:30 AM

Quote from: Prosit on August 19, 2011, 02:38:20 PM
Consider this:
Zeus, the big boss god is raised by a goat. How is that more godly, elegant, siginificant, than say.......oh lets be wild here....how is that better than being raised by a she wolf? What is siginificant in being raised by a goat that is more godly than being raised by a wolf? I don't know. Surely the people wouldn't give the big boss god a more humble or lesser origin that the mere human founders of Rome...or would they.....

How did I miss this? I agree with Coffeetime's last two sentences, but I think there's more. First, there's the symbolism of strength. A baby left to its own devices is highly vulnerable, even more 2000 years ago. If a baby survives those circumstances, it must be strong. Evidently, it needs milk. Therefore, you drum up a female beastie providing same. The fun thing is that even today, we read about abandoned babies surviving. It must have happened in ancient Greece also.

Second, there's the symbolism of the miraculous. Goats giving milk, OK, fine. Goats volunteering milk is something special. Wolves doing the same is even more miraculous, as you'd expect she'd eat babies for lunch and pick her teeth with the ribs. In that sense, Romulus and Remus conjured up an even greater miracle than Zeus. Maybe that's why Zeus' diet was more complicated, with Melissa's honey added. Here also, such things do happen. Animal mothers pick unlikely babies as their child, dogs raising ducklings, cats caring for piglets, even a lion adopting a deer and we make pictures of them and think it's sweet.

Peter