_Punch marks on Corinthian coins mistaken for Swastikas._--But is the Swastika really found on ancient coins? The use of precious metals as money dates to an unknown time in antiquity. Gold was used in early Bible times (1500 B. C.) among nearly every people as money, but it was by weight as a talent, and not as minted coin. The coinage of money began about 700 B. C. in Lydia. Lydia was a province on the western side of the peninsula of Asia Minor looking out toward Greece, while Lycia, its neighbor, was a province on the southern side looking toward the island of Rhodes. The Lydians began coinage by stamping with a punch each ingot or nugget of gold or silver, or a mixture of them called "Electrum." In the beginning these ingots were marked upon but one side, the reverse showing plainly the fiber of the anvil on which the ingot was laid when struck with the punch. But in a short time, it may have been two hundred years, this system was changed so as to use a die which would be reproduced on the coin when it was struck with a punch. The lion, bull, boar, dolphin, and many other figures were employed as designs for these dies. Athens used an owl; Corinth, Pegasus; Metapontine, a sheaf of wheat; Naples, a human-headed bull. The head and, occasionally, the entire form of the gods were employed. During almost the entire first period of nigh three hundred years the punch was used, and the punch marks show on the reverse side of the coins. These punch marks were as various as the dies for the obverse of the coins, but most of them took a variety of the square, as it would present the greatest surface of resistance to the punch. Even the triskelion of the Lycian coins is within an indented square (figs. 225 and 226). A series of these punch marks is given for demonstration on pl. 9. A favorite design was a square punch with a cross of two arms passing through the center, dividing the field into four quarters. Most of the punch marks on the coins of that period were of this kind. These punch marks and the method and machinery with which they were made are described in standard numismatic works.[235] [Illustration: Fig. 229. CORINTHIAN COINS. Obverse and reverse. Punch mark resembling Swastika.]