The Age of the Nobles and the Tyraiits in Greece 1 5 1 opening tombs far toward the in- terior of Asia Minor and taking out vases bearing the signature of the same Athenian vase-painter whose name you may also read on vases dug out of the Nile Delta in north- ern Africa, or taken from tombs in cemeteries of the Etruscan cities of Italy (Fig. 75). We suddenly gain a picture of the Athenian craftsman and merchant in touch with a vast com- mercial domain extending far across the ancient world. Soon the ship- builder, responding to the growing com- merce, began to build craft far larger than the old " fifty-oar " galleys of the Ho- meric Age. The new " merchantmen "were driven by sails, an Eg}'ptian invention of ages before (Fig. 14). They were so large that they could no longer be drawn up on the strand as before ; sheltered har- bors were neces- sary, and for the first time in history the anchor appeared. The protection of such Fig. ']^. Specimens illustrating the Beginning of Coinage These are rough lumps of silver, as long before used in the Orient (pp. 38, 67), flattened by the pressure of the stamp. Gradually they became round, and the stamp itself was finally made round instead of square, as in these e^rly examples. /, both sides of a Lydian coin (p. 98) (about 550 B.C.); .?, both sides of a coin of the Greek island of Chios (500 B.C.), showing how the Greeks followed the Lydian model (/) ; j, both sides of a Carian coin of Cnidus (650-550 B.C.), an example of the square stamp ; 4, both sides of a coin of Athens (sixth century B.C.), bearing head of goddess Athena and an owl with olive branch (square stamp). The inscription is an abbreviation of " Athens "
