Is there any evidence for the bessa before the introduction of this coin in 1903? Note that this coin, although dated earlier, was issued between 1922 and 1933. An attempt seems to have been made to indicate this but it hasn't got the start date right.
You are absolutely right about the coins issued. No discussion there at all. But my point was about fixing the periods by taking into account the exact dates and official equivalences for all the (theoretical) units and subunits of the currency. And as far as I have researched, the bessa was a kind of standardized official subunit (prior to 1904) actually and only in use as money of account: it did not exist physically, but was the way to value precisely the always fluctuating primitive “currencies” like cartridges or salt, which still circulated alongside the physical money.
Regarding santeem, this doesn't appear on the coins, so we're using a transliteration. Inevitably, this involves an attempt to match the pronunciation of the original word, ሳንቲም. The third character is a “t” followed by a long “ee” sound, hence the spelling we're using. “Santim” implies a short vowel, which is incorrect.
Well, I have to disagree here 😅 I don't see why we have to transliterate it, especially since the official and unofficial Ethiopian (in English) sources call it “santim”.
