page_title: Byzantine coinage
section_title: Iconography
hierarchical_section_title: Byzantine coinage / Iconography
context_page_description: Byzantine currency, money used in the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of the West, consisted of mainly two types of coins: the gold solidus and a variety of clearly valued bronze coins. By the end of the empire the currency was issued only in silver stavrata and minor copper coins with no gold issue.
  The East Roman or Byzantine Empire established and operated several mints throughout its history. Aside from the main metropolitan mint in the capital, Constantinople, a varying number of provincial mints were also established in other urban centres, especially during the 6th century. Most provincial mints except for Syracuse were closed or lost to invasions by the mid-7th century. After the loss of Syracuse in 878, Constantinople became the sole mint for gold and silver coinage until the late 11th century, when major provincial mints began to re-appear. Many mints, both imperial and, as the Byzantine world fragmented, belonging to autonomous local rulers, were operated in the 12th to 14th centuries. Constantinople and Trebizond, the seat of the independent Empire of Trebizond, survived until their conquest by the Ottoman Turks in the mid-15th century.
context_section_description: Early Byzantine coins continue the late Greco-Roman conventions: on the obverse the head of the Emperor, now full face rather than in profile, and on the reverse, usually a Christian symbol such as the cross, or a Victory or an angel (the two tending to merge into one another). The gold coins of Justinian II departed from these stable conventions by putting a bust of Christ on the obverse, and a half or full-length portrait of the Emperor on the reverse.  These innovations incidentally had the effect of leading the Islamic Caliph Abd al-Malik, who had previously copied Byzantine styles but replacing Christian symbols with Islamic equivalents, finally to develop a distinctive Islamic style, with only lettering on both sides.  This was then used on nearly all Islamic coinage until the modern period.
  The type of Justinian II was revived after the end of Iconoclasm, and with variations remained the norm until the end of the Empire.
  In the 10th century, so-called "anonymous folles" were struck instead of the earlier coins depicting the emperor. The anonymous folles featured the bust of Jesus on the obverse and the inscription "XRISTUS/bASILEU/bASILE", which translates to "Christ, Emperor of Emperors"
  Byzantine coins followed, and took to the furthest extreme, the tendency of precious metal coinage to get thinner and wider as time goes on. Late Byzantine gold coins became thin wafers that could be bent by hand.
  The Byzantine coinage had a prestige that lasted until near the end of the Empire. European rulers, once they again started issuing their own coins, tended to follow a simplified version of Byzantine patterns, with full face ruler portraits on the obverse.
caption: Solidus of Justinian II, second reign, after 705
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