The Athenian Owl Coin

Nothing says Ancient Greece, like the city of Athens and their patron goddess, Athena! She happens to be the daughter of Zeus and was born from his head. Yes, you read that right. That might explain why she is the Goddess of wisdom and war, especially strategy. She is often referred to as the gray-eyed goddess and is symbolized by the owl.

If you are a city state at war, you better keep Athena on your side. Which is exactly what the people of Athens needed to do back in the 400’s BCE when they were when at war with Sparta.

While the city minted this famous Athena/Owl coin prior to the Peloponnesian War — the fancy title for their big fight with Sparta–, the city ramped up coin production to help pay for the war.

Wars are expensive and the Athenians needed plenty of money to fund their navy. A single coin was about four days pay for a soldier. So you can imagine the Athenians needed a LOT of coins to build an navy.

As you can see, the coin has an image of the goddess on the front and an owl on the back. Maybe that is why we call the font of the coin heads and the back of the coin tails? See all those owl tail feathers? Either way this is one of the most famous coins of the ancient world.

The majority of these coins were made of silver but today we still have a very few that were made of gold. These coins were minted for 100s of years and you can see small changes in the pictures on the coins over time.

Now, let’s get crafting.

Supplies:

Air Dry Clay
Black Paint (metallic works great)
Silver Paint
Carving Tools or Toothpicks
Paint Brush

Directions:

Roll out the clay in the shape of a coin, make it as big or as small as you like. If you make it a little larger it will be easier to carve. You might even make a few sizes and see which you like best.

Use the photo of the coin on this page to carve the front and back of your coin. Do your best. The faces can be kind of difficult.
Let the coin dry.
Paint the coin black all over. Make sure to get the black paint in all the tiny nooks.
Let it dry. This should be pretty quick unless you used a LOT of paint.
Lightly apply a thin layer of silver paint.