In the ancient Greek world, close associations developed between certain animals and particular places-sometimes so strong that the creatures became emblems similar to today's mascots. Many cities on the mainland and numerous Aegean islands placed fauna on their coins, both reinforcing the symbolic relationships at home and advertising them abroad, as trade circulated the currency around Greece and overseas. These animals became icons of their issuing mints and functioned as shorthand reminders of the political and economic authorities that stood behind the coins, guaranteeing their monetary value.

The owl was sacred to the goddess Athena, sharing a reputation for great wisdom. In the last decades of the sixth century B.C., when the coinage of newly democratic Athens underwent a major overhaul, the owl was placed on the city's coins,
opposite a head of Athena. The basic design, seen on this silver tetradrachm from the second quarter of the fifth century B.C., prevailed well into the Hellenistic period. Extending toward the owl from the upper left-hand corner, a laurel branch provides another reminder of the connection between the bird and Athena, whose helmet has three laurel leaves attached to it on the opposite face of the coin.

The small island of Aegina, about 48.3 kilometers (30 miles) from Athens, chose to put a fixture of the local wildlife-the turtle-on its coinage. On the earliest group of Aeginetan coins, such as this silver stater, struck at the height of the island's eminence as a leader of maritime trade, a single row of dots runs the length of the turtle's shell. Later examples feature a reptile with a segmented shell.

---