I'm going to have to disagree with this. The
test cuts on Owls are random. Yes, many are on the
reverse, and many of these split the owl's
head or body, but I believe this is only because this is the thickest
part of the coin, and the
reverse is the concave
side, both conditions leading to fewer cracked coins when hit with a hammer and chisel. But some Owls are
test cut on the
obverse, and some on the edge. The cuts were all crude, and some did in fact
crack the coin or
flatten the coin's other
side. Further,
countermarking as a technology existed in the East for 150 years, more or less, before mass Owls, the most frequently
test cut, were initiated.
I believe multiple
test cuts refers neither to a weirdly crude accounting system or to stupidity on the
part of ancient peoples but to the high occurrence of counterfeiting in ancient times, which reached the point where some
counterfeits were made of
plated base metal with a
test cut engraved in the die as a further attempt to fool. Just as merchants in the Far East during the 18th and 19th centuries chop-marked U.S. Trade dollars, Spanish-American Pillar dollars, and other silver trade coins multiple times to test their authenticity, not trusting these coins (sometimes as well to indicate who it was who did the authentication), I believe merchants in the Near East in ancient times
test cut Owls for the same purpose, only more crudely since this was a much earlier time.