| Description : After about 400 years as part of the Ottoman Empire
(1523‐1912) the Dodecanese became the Italian Aegean Islands in 1912‐1943. After German occupation (1943‐1945)
it became a British protectorate. On the 15th of September 1947 the cession of the Dodecanese agreed with Italy
at the 1946 Paris Peace Conference came into force and on the 7th of March 1948 formal unification with Greece
was achieved with the creation of the Dodecanese prefecture. The coin, designed by Georgios Stamatopoulos, shows a
rose as a symbol of the main island of the Dodecanese, Rhodes, surrounded by concentric stylised waves. Rhodian coins with
this rose motif were already minted around 100 BC. At the top is written in a semicircle "1948‐2018 Η
ΕΝΩΣΗ ΤΩΝ ΔΩΔΕΚΑΝΗΣΩΝ
ΜΕ ΤΗΝ ΕΛΛΑΔΑ" (1948‐2018 union of the Dodecanese with
Greece), below "ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ"
("Hellenic Republic"). On the left is a palmette the mint mark of the Greek mint
Νομισματοκοπειο / Nomismatokopeio
(Bank of Greece ‐ Mint) in Halandri, on the right the signet "ΣΤΑΜ" of the coin designer. |
