Multilingualism and Coinage in the Ancient World

Multilingualism in the Achaemenid Empire has become a much-discussed topic in recent years. While Aramaic was long regarded as an official language of the empire, this view has been challenged by scholars, who view Aramaic as one of several languages used in the empire (see J. Tavernier, “The Use of Languages on the Various Levels of Administration in the Achaemenid Empire” [2017] 383–7). Coins issued in the fifth and fourth century B.C.E.

The late and post-Seleucid coins of Tyre and Sidon (second –early first century B.C.E.), featuring bilingual legends in Phoenician and Greek, offer fruitful case studies for the potentials and challenges of studying numismatic bilingualism. At first glance the picture might appear to merely confirm trends long known or suspected: the earliest quasi-municipal bronze coins (coins ostensibly produced by the authority both the Seleucid king and the local city) show productive use of long Phoenician legends, alongside Greek imperial legends.

A thorough analysis of the bilingual legends on the coins of the Indo-Greek kings from Hellenistic India reveals substantial differences between the engraving of the Greek and the Kharoṣṭhī letters. Based on this observation the engraving process of the coin dies is reconstructed, revealing at least three different steps with different personnel involved. These differences cannot be observed on the coins of Indo-Scythian kings, who follow the Indo-Greek rulers, which may hint towards workers with different cultural backgrounds being involved in this process.

Coinage of the ancient Indian subcontinent was a multilingual affair. By the first century B.C.E., minting traditions not only issued coins with legends written in Greek and a variety of Middle Indo-Aryan dialects (i.e., Prakrits), but also made use of both local and imported scripts. While this numismatic multilingualism has been acknowledged in passing, its broader significance has yet to be explored in earnest.