The Ghanaian Cedi has been the currency of Ghana since 1965, when it replaced the pre-decimal Ghanaian Pound.
Apart from the regular circulating coinage, the country has also authorised some foreign mints to issue commemorative and bullion coins under its jurisdiction. These are typically in standard bullion sizes, such as one ounce of gold (abbreviated as 1 oz Au, where "Au" comes from the Latin word for gold, Aurum).
The Woolly Mammoth is the first design in the Giants of the Ice Age coin series, which features eight large pre-historic animals; each coin in the series was issued in three different formats. The series was produced by German company Auragentum, with the coins struck by Leipziger Edelmetallverarbeitung (a division of Geiger Edelmetalle).
The woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the early Holocene epoch. It was broadly similar in size to the African Elephant with males hitting shoulder heights of 3.4 m, and weights of 6 tons. Females reached 2.9 m and 4 tons. Adapted to the cold with a thick, two-layer fur covering, they had small ears and tail to guard against frostbite and heat loss. Tusks were huge and curved.
Their diet consisted of sedges and grasses, the predominant vegetation on the Mammoth Steppe, which covered northern Eurasia and North America. They lived as long as sixty years. They only disappeared around 10,000 years ago, although some populations were still present on St Paul Island as recent as 5,600 years ago and on Wrangel Island 4,000 years ago. Remains are common, and include frozen corpses that are almost complete. |