The talari, equivalent to the Maria Theresa thaler, was divided into 20 ghersh (also guerche or gersh, from the Ottoman qirsh) or 40 bessa (a small copper coin).Ī new Ethiopian coinage appeared about 1903. The Ethiopian talari (thaler, dollar, birr) became the standard unit on 9 February 1893 and 200,000 dollars were produced at the Paris Mint in 1894 for Menelik II. The Maria Theresa thaler was officially adopted as the standard coin in 1855, although the Indian rupee and the Mexican dollar were also used in foreign trade. The thaler was known locally as the Birr (literally meaning 'silver' in Ge'ez and Amharic) or talari (ታላሪ). In the 18th and 19th centuries, Maria Theresa thalers and blocks of salt called 'amole tchew' (አሞሌ) served as currency in Ethiopia.
Thus, the pre-1931 currency could be considered the Abyssinian birr and the post-1931 currency the Ethiopian birr, although it was the same country and the same currency before and after.ġ86 billion birr were in circulation in 2008 ($14.7 billion or €9.97 billion). In 1931, Emperor Haile Selassie I formally requested that the international community use the name Ethiopia (as it had already been known internally for at least 1,600 years ) instead of the exonym Abyssinia, and the issuing Bank of Abyssinia also became the Bank of Ethiopia. The birr ( Amharic: ብር) is the unit of currency in Ethiopia.
