An unlisted hut coin

[moonmoth]

Hut coins are much more common than some of the wonders you see posted here, but they have their interesting aspects.  This one would be RIC VIII Siscia 215, a centenionalis of Constantius II, if it were not for the emperor's diadem.  These laurel-and-rosette diadems are not listed at all in RIC for Constantius II's Siscia coins of this period.

It's not hard to find "unlisted" late Roman bronzes, but it's still nice.  I have 164 hut coins.  Some are duplicates, but they include 95 types listed in RIC VIII and 13 unlisted or error types.  Ironically, I don't have a RIC VIII Siscia 215, but I now have two unlisted variants of it ...

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/moonmoth/hut_coins.html

[Dapsul]

Great site, the one on your hut coins! Shouldn't it be possible to identify the trees? I know some archaeobotanists; maybe I'll ask them to have a look.

Frank

[slokind]

I think it was Jochen who DID post some time ago a German site with the plants sorted out mint by mint and named.  Pat L.

[Jochen]

We have had a thread about this subject in the German Forum some times before. Sadly it was not possible to allocate the depicted trees to botanic species. Here I have a pic from Bruck, Die spätrömische Kupferprägung, Graz 1961. The legend benath the pics means "Note: Only frequent and characteristic forms are shown but not all variants."

The conclusion of his thread was:
(1) There was no literature found for this problem.
(2) The most specific opinion was:
      Most of these trees look like laurel-trees and could stand as symbol for victory.
      In Kyzikos probably was winter because the tree has no leaves. 
      In Trier the laurel-tree probably was unknown. So it could be a stylized oak-tree.   
      Lugdunum und possibly Thessalonica #1 remind of an olive-tree,
      and Siscia #2 looks like a maple-tree.
(3) It is only the matter of the idea of a tree in the sense of Platon with local different shapes.
     
Best regards

[moonmoth]

Jochen -

Thanks.  It's a pity there isn't such a site! 

I have a copy of Bruck's book, and the diagrams are pretty good, though as it says, not all tree types are shown - not even all the common ones. 

The original design for this coin type must have specified a tree and a hut, but the trees and huts as produced varied from place to place.  This seems odd, because there is evidence elsewhere that mints received a coin to copy, not just a design or a description.  But there it is.  Perhaps, this time, they didn't.  Or, perhaps there were instructions to make it seem real to the locals.

So the trees (and huts) as drawn on the coins could be at least two things. They could be depictions of locally known trees that suit the overall design; or they could be local engravers' ideas of the trees that grow in the locality that the design is supposed to represent.  (Or: the locality where, in the common view of local people, this scene could take place.)

So there is a lot of scope for variation and invention, but I do agree that some of the trees are identifiable.  I think one of the Alexandria types - which usually looks a lot like Bruck's diagram - is a fig, with fruits at the end of its branches.  The common Nicomedia type looks like an ash.

I am afraid the Treveri trees do not really resemble oaks.  I'm not all that familiar with olives, but I am not convinced by that idea either, really.  But I appreciate the attempt to find a match.

As to the idea that most of them resemble laurel, I think the German Forum members have more imagination than the coin engravers ..

There are photos of all of the types on my hut coin pages.  Here are an Alexandrian probably-a-fig, and a Treveri definitely-not-an-oak, as examples.

[slokind]

I admit it: I adore these coins, but so does everyone, and they run higher than other LRBC.  As an art historian, I love them as adumbrations of the kind of narrative art and the kind of trees one sees in Ottonian and early Romanesque art, most wonderfully on the expulsion from the Garden on the Hildesheim bronze doors.  Ernst Robert Curtius wrote of the poets of the 11th and 12th centuries writing about Spring with plants and trees they'd never seen.  That is why, too, Umberto Eco has his Melk novice relying on texts for authority rather than real things (realia).  Pat L.

[moonmoth]

The difficulty here is in trying to translate back from the coins to the text they are supposed to represent.  Not just the scenery, but also the story-line varies from place to place, and sometimes in the same place.  Sometimes the soldier is vast, sometimes merely very large.  Sometimes the small figure is dragged out, leaning back and perhaps stumbling (as with the Alexandrian coin above), and sometimes he is led out (as on the Siscia coin in the first post).  Sometimes he is threatened with a spear (as on the Treveri coin above), sometimes the spear points the way forward, sometimes neither and the spear points down.  It is possible that this can tell us something about how the locals felt about barbarians at the time, or how the State wanted them to think; though over-interpretation can be dangerous.  Maybe these variations did not seem important at the time.

To illustrate some of this variation (and another type of tree. Banana?), here is a hut coin from Aquileia, with the small figure being guided out with his hand clasped to the haft of the spear, which points the way.

That's a wonderful door, Pat.  Thanks for posting it.

[Jochen]

Oh, that's a nice type! I have never seen it before. But it too shows that the scene is rather peaceful. The soldier is not depicted hostile against the barbar.

Best regards

[moonmoth]

Not overtly hostile .. the poor innocent comes stumbling out of his hut, hand to face, maybe rubbing the sleep from his eyes, as the powerful emperor/soldier pulls him inexorably into the empire.  His life is about to change forever.  Can he resist?  He can not.  He is small and empty-handed.  The soldier is huge - bigger than his whole house! - armoured, and is carrying a very large spear.

Peaceful or not, I don't think he's going to like what happens next.  Are the Romans going to build him a forum, an aqueduct and an amphitheatre?  Or is he getting a free trip to Rome and life as a slave?  Let's guess ...

[Jochen]

Hi Moonmoth!

I think you know the story behind this type? Konrad Kraft (in "Die Taten der Kaiser Constans und Constantius II., Gesammelte Aufsätze zur antiken Geldgeschichte und Numismatik I, WBG 1978) explicates, that this depiction refers to the transfer of the Franks (Laetes) from the eastside of the Rhine to the westside. They then settled in Taxandria, nowadays Belgium. This transfer occurred by treaties between Romans and Franks and the Franks should defend the Empire against enemies as "Wehrbauern" (= armed peasants?).

Best regards

[moonmoth]

Jochen, thanks.  I know about that article, but I don't know how accurate it is.   (Do you know if a translated version exists anywhere?)

I wonder, if this refers to setting up a border region of armed peasants, why the small barbarians are shown as puny, insignificant and unarmed.  Is this who is to defend the empire, while the well-armed Roman soldier goes off for a nice lunch?

[Jochen]

Hi Moonmoth!

Sorry, I don't know of an English translation. But we have already talked about this subject on this Forum before. Please take a look at
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=21179.msg143917#msg143917

The size difference of the two persons I think is due to the fact that the Romans felt high superior to the 'Barbars'.

Best regards