500 Dram Armenian Alphabet - Ու

Part of the Central Bank of Armenia's 38-coin series commemorating the Armenian alphabet, each piece assigned to a single letter created by the monk Mesrop Mashtots around 405 AD. Mashtots devised the script specifically to translate the Bible into Armenian — a project with direct political consequences, as it helped detach the Armenian Church from both Greek and Syriac ecclesiastical influence and anchor a distinct national identity through literacy.

The letter Ու is a ligature, one of the few in the alphabet formed by combining two existing characters.