Mediaeval And Modern Coins In The Athenian Agora

Mediaeval and Modern Coins in the Athenian Agora A M E R I C A N S C H O O L OF CLASSICAL S T U D I E S AT A T H E N S P R I N C E T O N , N E W JERSEY 1978 THE ATHENIANA G O R Ahas been more or less continuously inhabited from prehistoric times until the present day. During the American excavations over 75,000 coins have been found, many dating as early as the 6th century B.c., when coins were first used in Athens. Much of this money is ancient and furnishes valuable evidence for reconstructing the life of the Greco-Roman city. The numismatic finds include, however, a considerable amount of material from the mediaeval and modem periods--coins of the Byzantine emperors, of the Frankish, Venetian, and Turkish conquerors, of modem Europe, and of Greece itself. These mediaeval and modem excavation coins provide a record of the kind of money used in the Athenian market place for some 1,650years-from the early 4th century after Christ, when Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire, to today. The coins tell us a great deal about the commercial and political history of Athens throughout the centuries. The coins uncovered by the American excavators do not, however, give us a complete picture of coinage in Athens, because nearly all of the coins found are bronze or copper pieces of small change. The silver and gold coins which circulated in the city are rarely encountered because the excavation coins represent almost exclusively coins which were lost and never recoveredstamped into the earth floor of the Agora, or dropped in wells, drains, or cisterns. When coins of precious metal were dropped they were searched for until found. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but most of the silver and gold coins illustrated in this book come from hoards-groups of coins intentionally secreted, usually during times of trouble, and never recovered by their owners. One such hoard (of copper coins) is illustrated (7) and others are mentioned throughout the text. Coin hoards are often of more value to the numismatist and historian than individual pieces, because they document the kinds of coins that circulated together in a specific place at a specific time. T H E MAKING OF COINAGE A L L T H E M E D I A E V A L and some of the modem coins illustrated in this book were handmade. The method of striking (used also in ancient times) was quite simple and required only a few basic tools (I). The first step was the preparation of the flan, or metal blank, upon which the coin designs would be stamped. Flans could be produced in a number of different ways, and the Agora finds document a few of these. Often the metal was heated to 2 HAMMER PUNCH - ~ REVERSE DIE FLAN - OBVERSE DIE ANVIL - I. Method used for hammered coinage before the invention of modern minting machinery. Designs were cut into two dies and hammered into a flan to produce a coin. a molten state and then poured into a series of connected disk-shaped molds. Some of the coins reproduced here show the casting ‘lugs’ that were never removed and attest to the use of this method. Casting, either in such circular molds or in globular form, was generally used for coins of precious metal. These pieces were accepted in commerce a t their bullion value and casting produced flans of fairly uniform weight. Exact weights were later attained by testing each blank, filing the heavy ones, and remelting the light ones. Copper and bronze coins were, on the contrary, of token value only, and less precise means of preparing coin blanks could also be employed. One common method was to cast or forge byhammering metal rods and then cut individual flans from them, either by repeated chisel strokes or by sawing. Blanks so obtained might vary considerably in size and, although th