Tag Archives: Egypt

Egyptian 25-Piastre Note

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Something I didn’t know until yesterday, but might have guessed: the modern Egyptian pound, which is every bit as fiat-y as any other currency now, owes its origin to the Maria Theresa thaler, a good example of sound money if there ever was one. The history of money, especially currency, continues to fascinate. People will miss it if it all ever becomes nothing but notions on some server farm.

I don’t have a one-pound Egyptian banknote. I do have a 25-piastre note, the smallest paper denomination that the Central Bank of Egypt issues, acquired a few years ago with a number of other world banknotes for a small sum.

These days, 1 Egyptian pound = about 6.3 U.S. cents, so my quarter-pound note is theoretically worth about 1.5 cents. No collector value, I’m sure. The note has been issued since the 1980s, and I’ll bet there are a lot of them.
I’m not actually sure that’s the obverse, though Wiki says it is. I suppose the Arabic text determines that; the Roman text is on the other side. In any case, this side depicts the Sayeda Aisha Mosque in Cairo.

The Egyptian Coat of Arms is on the other side.
Not just any eagle, either: the Eagle of Saladin. The 12th-century Sultan of Egypt and warrior against the Crusader states.

Interesting choice of crops to flank the Eagle of Saladin. Wheat, of course; Egypt was the breadbasket of ancient Rome, one reason a prefect ruled the province directly on behalf of the Emperor, rather than a governor appointed by the Senate. Also, cotton. Certainly — Egyptian cotton, known the world over.

Corn? As in, maize? That’s what it looks like. The FAO tells me that in Egypt, “Wheat is the major winter cereal grain crop and the third major crop in terms of area planted… Maize is the second most important crop… but at least 50 percent of its production is used for livestock and poultry feed.”

How about that. Another consequence of the Columbian exchange echoing down the centuries.

Centuries Come, Centuries Go

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Last week I took note of some of the monumental items at the Oriental Institute Museum, but of course the museum is home to a lot more artifacts, and most of them were more modest in size. But no less interesting for it. Such as some dice from Roman Egypt.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERACool. Especially since anyone alive now, two millennia after they were made, could look at them and know exactly what they’re for, even if the games of chance aren’t quite the same. Even cooler is that dice were ancient even then, so much so that their origin is obscure.

Also on display were some knucklebones, an alternative to dice that are probably just as old, if not older (and the ancestor of modern playing jacks?). According the museum, “knucklebones of sheep or oxen were used to determine the number of moves on game boards. The four sides of each bone are distinctive, and each was assigned a specific number. They were normally thrown in pairs, allowing for ten possible combinations.”

The museum also sported plenty of figurines.

Eygptian figurines 1Still charming after all these centuries. Thought to come from a tomb of a courtier named Nykauinpu at Giza, made of limestone and dating from the Old Kingdom, Dynasty 5 of the 25th century BC. So by the time of Julius Caesar, this statue was already older than anything from the time of Julius Caesar is now. Even on a human scale (not to mention geological or cosmological), time’s mind-boggling.

On a sign describing another man-and-woman set of Egyptian figurines, I noted these lines, referring to the way the woman was dressed (emphasis added): “This style of dress was popular for the entire 3,000 years of pharaonic history.” I’ll say one thing about the ancient Egyptians — they found something they liked and stuck with it.

Born in Babylonia, Moved to Chicago

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The Oriental Institute Museum in Hyde Park, Chicago, houses an embarrassment of riches, a surfeit of treasures, and an abundance of artifacts from times lost to time. Not bad for an organization that isn’t even a century old. The institute’s web site puts it succinctly: “The Oriental Institute is a research organization and museum devoted to the study of the ancient Near East. Founded in 1919 by James Henry Breasted, the Institute, a part of the University of Chicago, is an internationally recognized pioneer in the archaeology, philology, and history of early Near Eastern civilizations.”

Besides the obviously high quality of the collection, which I’m only partly able to appreciate – it’s hard for me to sort out of who was who and when was when in the ancient Near East, except for places that were eventually part of the Roman Empire — I like the museum for two other reasons. First, it’s never been crowded in all the times I’ve been there since the 1980s. Second, it doesn’t pander to visitors with a lot of whiz-bang, touch-it-wow gimmicks. It’s got stuff, and signs describing that stuff. An old-fashioned, static approach to museum organization, for sure. If you go to the Oriental Institute Museum, you’ve got to be prepared to look at things and read about them.

But who’s so jaded that he wouldn’t be impressed by this?

Oriental Institute-2Or this?

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOr this?

How'd You Get So Funky?The first item is a colossal bull head from the Hundred-Column Hall of Persepolis, dating from the reigns of Xerxes and Artaxerxes I in the fifth century BC (note: the signs in the museum use BC, not BCE). The horns are lost, which makes me suspect they were made of something really valuable, looted long ago.

Next is a human-headed winged bull — a lamassu — which once was at the entrance to the throne room of Assyrian King Sargon II . Weighs 40 tons. I wouldn’t want to get on his bad side.

Finally, a 17-foot-plus statue of Tutankhamun. Well, sort of. The institute says: “The statue is inscribed for Horemheb whose name was recut over that of King Aye. The statue is assigned to the reign of Tutankhamun on stylistic grounds, for it resembles other representations of that king.” Sure, but it’ll always be King Tut to me.