Owls
This recent addition to the collection is a modern owl coin, a 1973 Greek 2 Drachma. Christie has been enjoying and photographing the little owls regularly visiting her back yard in Florida (top).
At the same time an owl made a rare visit to our back yard at dusk in NY looking for some song birds or chipmunks.
Coin-incidence???- I think karma. Looks like a Barred Owl.
So I surprised her with an eBay package of an owl ring that mimics the Athenian Owl coin of 510BC.
The owl coin was so popular that it was used for 500 years. The owl brought the olive tree to Athens, thus the leaves. A tiny crescent moon referring to the owls nocturnal habits. AΘE Greek symbols alpha theta epsilon standing for the first 3 letters of Athens. Athena was a Greek goddess of wisdom and warfare, sort of like military intelligence. It should be noted that the Roman poet Virgil most likely used these owl coins. He may have died with them in his possession as his last trip to Greece in 19 BC was when he caught a fever and died. The little owl species athena noctua depicted could be the same as the ones in Florida as they are only about 6 inches tall.
The reverse side of owl coin illustrates the widely used symbolic phoenix; the mythological bird that lives 500 years burns itself up and is reborn from ashes. It is said to be the soul of the sun god Ra and painted on the Heliopolis Tomb Walls of the ancient Egyptian Irinefer 1200 yrs BC. The Roman god Aeternitas is shown holding a Phoenix bird on these coins from 211 years AD or (CE common era). The Asian phoenix is shown in the first chapter on the 1924 Japanese coin. You might remember seeing the phoenix on the hood of the 1978 Firebird Trans Am used by Smokey and the Bandit.
Symbols, symbols, symbols; they are everywhere.