Comments on: We have 30,000 reasons to keep Britannia on our 50p coin! http://www.coinlink.com/News/world-coins/we-have-30000-reasons-to-keep-britannia-on-our-50p-coin/ Rare Coins & Currency News for Numismatic Collectors - Updated Daily Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:16:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc By: Keith Seddon http://www.coinlink.com/News/world-coins/we-have-30000-reasons-to-keep-britannia-on-our-50p-coin/#comment-3066 Keith Seddon Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:28:51 +0000 http://www.coinlink.com/News/world-coins/we-have-30000-reasons-to-keep-britannia-on-our-50p-coin/#comment-3066 We have been dismayed to hear that the figure of Britannia is no longer to appear on the fifty pence coin, and that this will be the first time in three hundred years that British coinage has not featured this Lady. She first appeared on British coins when the Romans invaded Britain, and the image was based on the figure of Roma, who featured on Roman coins. Roma was the goddess Minerva, presented as the personification of Rome. No doubt the Romans copied this idea from Athena, the patron goddess of Athens, to whose glory the Parthenon (Temple of the Virgin) was built. Long ago, before the temple was desecrated, there stood a massive statue of the Lady, designed by Phidias and made in ivory and gold: it was the visual form on which all later manifestations of her, including Britannia, were based. Minerva is the Roman equivalent of Athena, and these goddesses are represented in the same form, as a beautiful woman carrying a shield and wearing a helmet. Britannia is also represented in this way. When the Romans came to Britain, they reported that the native people were worshipping Mercury and Minerva. The British names for these deities are not known, except in a couple of cases: at the holy spring in Bath, the local goddess Sulis was identified with Minerva by the Romans; and it has also been suggested that Brigantia, a goddess worshipped in the north of England by a tribe called the Brigantes, may have been another goddess whom the Romans would have regarded as a manifestation of Minerva. Whatever name or visual presentation may occur in any particular culture at any particular time, it is very often the case that the same aspects of Deity are being venerated. Minerva and Mercury are the deities of Wisdom and the Word respectively, and their origins can be traced back to ancient Egypt, where they were worshipped under the names of Nit and Djehuty, or, as the Greeks rendered these names, Neith and Thoth. The Greeks identified Thoth with their god Hermes (Mercury to the Romans), while Neith (a hunting goddess wearing a helmet-like crown) was identified with Athena. These concepts of Deity also had an important influence on Judaism and Christianity, in which they appear as Sophia and the Logos. Essentially, they are the female and male personifications of the Mind of God. On the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, most people will recognise the figure of God creating Adam, but who is that Lady at God's side with his arm around her shoulders? It is none other than Sophia, Our Lady of Wisdom; for God, of course, made everything with wisdom. In Constantinople, now Istanbul, the magnificent church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) was dedicated to her, and is now a mosque. If this Lady is universally venerated, it is no surprise. As Athena, the armed maiden who sprang from the head of Zeus, she presided over the city where both philosophy and democracy were born, and the whole of Western civilisation developed from these principles of rationality and equality. Our Lady of Wisdom is the very personification of these values, and the fact that she is a goddess is the recognition in our culture that these values are sacred. The helmet that she wears is not a symbol of aggression but of the unassailability of Holy Wisdom. She is perpetually virgin, sufficient unto herself, never to be compromised or overthrown. The Romans paid us the compliment of recognising the local British goddesses as manifestations of the universally recognised Lady of Wisdom, and enshrined her on British coins as Britannia, the very symbol of our nation in which one would hope that the civilised values that she represents are still upheld. To remove her image from our coins now is a grave mistake. Perhaps in ignorance it has been thought that she is a jingoistic symbol, old-fashioned and remniscent of of Empire: but this is not so. Britannia is far older -- a local manifestation of an ancient archetype. Athena can be traced back to the most ancient of goddesses who took the form of birds and snakes, still featuring in her sacred owl of wisdom and in the Gorgon's head on her shield. In the temple of Neith in Sais, Egypt, an inscription on the goddess's statue declared, 'I am all that is and was and shall be, and no one has yet lifted the veil that covers me'. We are privileged to have the sacred image of this ancient Lady in her local form as Britannia on our coins. How can we give this up without a protest? The helmet of Britannia/Minerva/Athena/Neith reminds us that all the values that she represents have to be defended, or else we are in danger of losing them. This is why we object to the loss of the Lady herself from our coinage: her holy image is a symbol of all that our civilisation stands for, and if we cannot even defend the image from removal, how can we hope to protect the abstract principles that lie behind it? Yours sincerely, Dr. Keith Seddon Dr. Jocelyn Almond We have been dismayed to hear that the figure of Britannia is no longer to appear on the fifty pence coin, and that this will be the first time in three hundred years that British coinage has not featured this Lady. She first appeared on British coins when the Romans invaded Britain, and the image was based on the figure of Roma, who featured on Roman coins. Roma was the goddess Minerva, presented as the personification of Rome. No doubt the Romans copied this idea from Athena, the patron goddess of Athens, to whose glory the Parthenon (Temple of the Virgin) was built. Long ago, before the temple was desecrated, there stood a massive statue of the Lady, designed by Phidias and made in ivory and gold: it was the visual form on which all later manifestations of her, including Britannia, were based. Minerva is the Roman equivalent of Athena, and these goddesses are represented in the same form, as a beautiful woman carrying a shield and wearing a helmet. Britannia is also represented in this way. When the Romans came to Britain, they reported that the native people were worshipping Mercury and Minerva. The British names for these deities are not known, except in a couple of cases: at the holy spring in Bath, the local goddess Sulis was identified with Minerva by the Romans; and it has also been suggested that Brigantia, a goddess worshipped in the north of England by a tribe called the Brigantes, may have been another goddess whom the Romans would have regarded as a manifestation of Minerva.

Whatever name or visual presentation may occur in any particular culture at any particular time, it is very often the case that the same aspects of Deity are being venerated. Minerva and Mercury are the deities of Wisdom and the Word respectively, and their origins can be traced back to ancient Egypt, where they were worshipped under the names of Nit and Djehuty, or, as the Greeks rendered these names, Neith and Thoth. The Greeks identified Thoth with their god Hermes (Mercury to the Romans), while Neith (a hunting goddess wearing a helmet-like crown) was identified with Athena. These concepts of Deity also had an important influence on Judaism and Christianity, in which they appear as Sophia and the Logos. Essentially, they are the female and male personifications of the Mind of God. On the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, most people will recognise the figure of God creating Adam, but who is that Lady at God’s side with his arm around her shoulders? It is none other than Sophia, Our Lady of Wisdom; for God, of course, made everything with wisdom. In Constantinople, now Istanbul, the magnificent church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) was dedicated to her, and is now a mosque.

If this Lady is universally venerated, it is no surprise. As Athena, the armed maiden who sprang from the head of Zeus, she presided over the city where both philosophy and democracy were born, and the whole of Western civilisation developed from these principles of rationality and equality. Our Lady of Wisdom is the very personification of these values, and the fact that she is a goddess is the recognition in our culture that these values are sacred. The helmet that she wears is not a symbol of aggression but of the unassailability of Holy Wisdom. She is perpetually virgin, sufficient unto herself, never to be compromised or overthrown. The Romans paid us the compliment of recognising the local British goddesses as manifestations of the universally recognised Lady of Wisdom, and enshrined her on British coins as Britannia, the very symbol of our nation in which one would hope that the civilised values that she represents are still upheld. To remove her image from our coins now is a grave mistake. Perhaps in ignorance it has been thought that she is a jingoistic symbol, old-fashioned and remniscent of of Empire: but this is not so. Britannia is far older — a local manifestation of an ancient archetype. Athena can be traced back to the most ancient of goddesses who took the form of birds and snakes, still featuring in her sacred owl of wisdom and in the Gorgon’s head on her shield. In the temple of Neith in Sais, Egypt, an inscription on the goddess’s statue declared, ‘I am all that is and was and shall be, and no one has yet lifted the veil that covers me’. We are privileged to have the sacred image of this ancient Lady in her local form as Britannia on our coins. How can we give this up without a protest? The helmet of Britannia/Minerva/Athena/Neith reminds us that all the values that she represents have to be defended, or else we are in danger of losing them. This is why we object to the loss of the Lady herself from our coinage: her holy image is a symbol of all that our civilisation stands for, and if we cannot even defend the image from removal, how can we hope to protect the abstract principles that lie behind it?

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Keith Seddon
Dr. Jocelyn Almond

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