Roman coins front and back8/3/2023 The form of currency follows its function, which is to serve as a readily accepted medium of exchange of value. The side expressing the Six Kalimas (the Islamic profession of faith) is usually defined as the obverse.Ī convention exists typically to display the obverse to the left (or above) and the reverse to the right (or below) in photographs and museum displays, but this is not invariably observed. On rupees, the side that carries the name of the ruler is considered the obverse.Īfter 695 Islamic coins avoided all images of persons and usually contained script alone. Silver rupee using Mughal conventions, but minted by the British East India Company Madras Presidency between 18. Without images, therefore, it is not always easy to tell which side will be regarded as the obverse without some knowledge. The type of Justinian II was revived after the end of the Byzantine Iconoclasm, and with variations remained the norm until the end of the Empire. This script alone style then was used on nearly all Islamic coinage until the modern period. The introduction of this style in the gold coins of Justinian II from the year 695 provoked the Islamic Caliph, Abd al-Malik, who previously had copied Byzantine designs, replacing Christian symbols with Islamic equivalents, finally to develop a distinctive Islamic style, with just lettering on both sides of their coins. Legend: DN IHS CHS REX RAGNANTIUM / DN IUSTINIANUS MULTUS A.Ī movement back to the earlier tradition of a deity being placed on the obverse occurred in Byzantine coinage, where a head of Christ became the obverse and a head or portrait (half or full-length) of the emperor became considered the reverse. Christ is on the obverse ( left), the emperor on the reverse. In ancient Greek monarchical coinage, the situation continued whereby a larger image of a deity, is called the obverse, but a smaller image of a monarch appears on the other side which is called the reverse. The opposite side may have varied from time to time. In the many republics of ancient Greece, such as Athens or Corinth, one side of their coins would have a symbol of the state, usually their patron goddess or her symbol, which remained constant through all of the coins minted by that state, which is regarded as the obverse of those coins. Similar versions of these two images, both symbols of the state, were used on the Athenian coins for more than two centuries. Following this principle, in the most famous of ancient Greek coins, the tetradrachm of Athens, the obverse is the head of Athena and the reverse is her owl. Generally, the side of a coin with the larger-scale image will be called the obverse (especially if the image is a single head) and, if that does not serve to distinguish them, the side that is more typical of a wide range of coins from that location will be called the obverse. 490 BC, the head of Athena, (left), is regarded as the obverse because of its larger scale and because it is a portrait head the entire owl is depicted in a smaller scale on the reverse. ![]() The equivalent terms used in codicology, manuscript studies, print studies and publishing are "recto" and "verso". In fields of scholarship outside numismatics, the term front is more commonly used than obverse, while usage of reverse is widespread. is used for obverse, while ℞, )( and rev. The obverse of a coin is commonly called heads, because it often depicts the head of a prominent person, and the reverse tails. In this usage, obverse means the front face of the object and reverse means the back face. ![]() Obverse and its opposite, reverse, refer to the two flat faces of coins and some other two-sided objects, including paper money, flags, seals, medals, drawings, old master prints and other works of art, and printed fabrics. Legend: IMP C M CL TACITVS AVG / VICTORIA GOTTHI A Roman imperial coin of Marcus Claudius Tacitus, who ruled briefly from 275 to 276, follows the convention of obverse and reverse coin traditions.
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