China also boasted erotic coins ("spring coins") as early as the Han Dynasty. On one side of a
coin would be
words of good omen; on the other, a god and a goddess would be copulating. It was claimed
that such coins
could dispel evil spirits, as a consequence of which, parents frequently gave them to their
children as a form of
protection against supernatural forces. By the time of the Sung Dynasty the coins were
showing a variety of coital
positions: they were no longer called "spring coins" but "bed-curtain-spreading coins." They
formed an integral
part of a dowry when a daughter married, on the wedding-night the coins would be scattered
on the bridal bed.
In other cultures with a strong erotic tradition and a coinage system coins were also used to
depict sexual
activity. For example, in pre-Christian Greece some coins show an eager satyr carrying off a
complaisant nymph
(mid-sixth century B.C.). And there is a Greek scaraboid of the fifth century B.C., showing a
cock treading a hen;
an identical scene appears on an Etruscan gem of the same period.