DescriptionAmisos (Amisus) is the modern town of Samsun on the northern coast of Anatolia. There were people there in Paleolithic times. The earliest Greek colonists came from Miletos in the 8th century BC. It was conquered by the Persians, who fell to Alexander. After Alexander it was taken by the Kingdom of Pontus. The Romans defeated the Pontines.Pontus was the northeastern coast of Anatolia and its hinterland. It was a favorite destination of Greek colonists from archaic times.We think that our culture grew out of the culture of Greece because it was in Greece (and in China) that people started thinking about how things could be different than they were in a world where everything was dangerous and might made right. They also established principles of artistic expression that we still use today. We see this approach to art in their coins.Ancient Coins includes Greek and Roman coins and those of neighbors and successors, geographically from Morocco and Spain all the way to Afghanistan. Date ranges for these begin with the world’s earliest coins of the 8th century BC to, in an extreme case, the end of Byzantine Empire, 1453 AD.
