Cameroon Wins 2023-dated “Most Historically Significant” Coin
Cameroon’s Sumerian Civilization coin took home top honors in the Most Historically Significant Coin Category of the Coin of the Year (COTY) Awards for 2023-dated coins. The two ounce silver coin is the first in the “Seven Groundbreaking Ancient Civilizations” series.
Art Mint designed the coin and earned its first COTY win. As Art Mint describes, the ancient Sumerian civilization was located in an area in Mesopotamia above the shared floodplains of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
First settled round 10000 B.C., the vibrant farming communities grew to create the world’s first cities, including Eridu, Uruk, and Ur. The ancient Sumerians are credited with creating the first writing system called cuneiform, pioneering mathematics, astronomy and astrology, inventing irrigation, starting the first schools, codifing the first codes of law, and establishing our current conceptions of time by dividing the day into hours, minutes and seconds.
The reverse of the Sumerian Civilization coin features a vivid realistic sculpted depiction of the Sumerian god Lamassu, which is currently on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris. It also includes the Sumerian cuneiform script and architectural elements from the ancient civilization.
The obverse of the coin features the Coat of Arms of Cameron and the inscriptions: “REPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN” – the issuing country, “2000 FRANCS CFA” – the face value and “2023” – the year of issue. All around the obverse, there are seven circles of inscriptions with ancient writing and alphabet representing one of each civilization that is a part of the series.
The coin weighs 62.2 grams and measures 50 mm in diameter. Mintage is limited to 300 coins.