The Diokitirion Square Trachy

[glebe]

Below is another example of the mysterious coin Dochev Pl. LXI, 2 (Dochev published an example found at Turnovo).
This type has been discussed before:

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=31935.0

with no firm conclusion being reached.
To my mind the design is very likely adapted from S.2516 of John V and Anna, which is probably an issue of Thessalonica in 1351-2, or perhaps a little later in 1354 after John's return to Constantinople.
However the style and in particular the neat scyphate fabric says that this type is not the issue of an official mint (of Byzantium or Bulgaria).
Bendall suggests it was an issue of the Asen brothers Alexius and Ivan who apparently took power in southern Thrace in 1356, but my guess is that it was struck (in Thrace) by John V, who had been sent to the Chalkidike apanage in 1352-3 to keep him out of trouble, before his recall to Constantinople.

Ross G.

[Paleologos]

http://www.academia.edu/768803/_A_Palaiologan_Trachion_from_the_Dioikitiriou_Square_Excavation_Nomismatika_Chronika_Hellenic_Numismatic_Society_Athens_2001_71-93

[glebe]

The idea that the obverse figure is St Demetrius can I think be safely dismissed.

Ross G.

(Note that I previously said Andronicus).

[Orthodoxcoins]

Two more coins

[Paleologos]

The idea that the obverse figure is St Andronicus can I think be safely dismissed.

Ross G.

St Andronicus or St. Demetrius?

[glebe]

Yes I meant Demetrius - I've corrected the previous post.
Note incidentally that the reverse of this type is upright, whereas on official Byzantine issues it is almost always inverted.

Ross G.

[Paleologos]

So what could be depicted on the obverse....?

[glebe]

Good question. I would assume it's supposed to be the Virgin - the iconography seems rather doubtful on this type, as with the two female crowns.

Ross G.

[Paleologos]

This is my ( Dioikitiriou) coin.
I think is the only one with visible letters and I can read in the right side of the reverse the letters OAN I agree with Glebe that probably it is John V with Anna of Savoy I agree also that it is not struck in Thessaloniki because of the style and the neat scyphate fabric.
I dont know why Bendall suggest that it is an issue of Asen brothers Ivan and Alexius....(we have female crown here!)


p.s In the Greek language Didymoteichon means twin walls...............I don`t know if it is coincidence!




Didymoteichon

 

Centre of the west bank of the Evros is Didymoteichon, founded on a barren, rocky hill beside the Erythropotamos, tributary of the Evros. Didymoteichon was the birthplace of the Emperor of Nicaea, John III Vatatzes (1222-1254) and of John V Palaeologos (1314-1347). Here John VI Cantacuzenos was crowned emperor in 1341, and here the nobleman, great logothetes Theodoras Metochites was exiled. Upon the walls of the city is repeated the monogram of their builder, protostrator Konstantinos Tarchaneiotis, lord of Didymoteichon in the mid fourteenth century. Built in the wall of the shrine of Saint Demetrios is a plaque with four monograms of the name 'Andronikos Raoul Asanes Palaeologos', who had strong family ties with John Cantacuzenos and his wife Irene.

   
Inside the castle of Didymoteichon stands the church of Saint Catherine, dated to the mid-fourteenth century. The elaborate brickwork of its exterior, with the ornamented blind arcades and festones, and the architectural type, single-aisle with three pairs of internal buttresses, link this building too with the architecture of Constantinople and with that of the Laskarids of Nicaea. In the graves excavated outside the church a funerary inscription of the megaloschemos monk Dionysios (1173), mentioning the Orthodox King Manuel and the most respected Augusta Maria, was found in secondary use.
A little later, in the first half of the fourteenth century, the north building was added to the Byzantine cathedral of Didymoteichon where, tradition relates, the metropolitans of the city were buried. This annexe, which is partially preserved north of the present metropolis of Saint Athanasios (1834), is long and narrow with arcosolia on both sides and a single-aisle, domed side chapel at the east end. Between the tombs, which bore wall-paintings, and under the floor are two ossuaries. The north wall of the building, which is preserved to an appreciable height, is constructed of ashlar masonry which forms shallow niches, cornices and half columns. This careful construction alludes to contemporary buildings in Constantinople, such as the Chora Monastery.

 

   
Ruins of a cemetery chapel in which, according to tradition, the metropolitans of Didymoteichon were buried. This is a narrow oblong area with arcosolia on the two long sides and a double ossuary beneath the floor. The careful masonry of ashlared blocks dates the construction to the first half of the fourteenth century.
In the soft rock of Didymoteichon its inhabitants cut cellars, small and large, that constituted the basements of their houses, which were two - or even three - stored on the downward side, as apparent from the sockets for the floor beams in the walls of rock. Gregoras (fourteenth century) records that his contemporaries in Didymoteichon cut basements of this kind, cisterns and other chambers. The earliest examples known to the author pre-date the reign of Justinian and are more carefully hewn than more recent ones.

   
The streets were also cut in the rock, and their narrow width indicates that Byzantine Didymoteichon was densely populated. The main thoroughfares led to two central gateways, The east and the west, of which the latter, towards the river Erythropotamos, survives in toto. In the early years of the Ottoman Occupation this acquired an esplanade with gate, adjacent to a cower with pointed blind arcades. The Byzantine gateways were flanked by pentagonal bastions, very similar to The Early Christian ones at Mesembria on the Black Sea and at Amphipolis. The bastions at Didymoteichon are invested with huge ashlar blocks from the city itself, and not from the hill of Aghia Petra opposite, where the ruins of Plotinoupolis, founded by Trajan (98-117) have been discovered.

The discovery of pottery of the Classical period (fifth-fourth century BC) together with local Thracian wares at Aghia Petra, attests the existence on this site of an ancient city, the name of which eludes us. The latest coins at Aghia Petra are of Heracleius (610-614), for which reason Plotinoupolis is thought to have ceased to exist at the end of Antiquity and was replaced by Didymoteichon.


Didymoteichon is mentioned as an episcopal see in the ninth century. The marble column-boundary stone bearing the inscription "CASTLE OF DIDYMOTEICHON", found together with other inscribed boundary stones of Byzantine cities of Thrace, at Pliska, capital of the Bulgarian kingdom, was taken there by Crum after his campaign in Thrace in 812-814. This means that Didymoteichon existed before the beginning of the ninth century and is one of the cities of the Black Sea littoral and Thrace which Constantine V reinforced in 751.

[glebe]

Do you have a weight for this example?

Ross G.

[glebe]

This is my ( Dioikitiriou) coin.
I think is the only one with visible letters and I can read in the right side of the reverse the letters OAN I agree with Glebe that probably it is John V with Anna of Savoy I agree also that it is not struck in Thessaloniki because of the style and the neat scyphate fabric.
I dont know why Bendall suggest that it is an issue of Asen brothers Ivan and Alexius....(we have female crown here!)


p.s In the Greek language Didymoteichon means twin walls...............I don`t know if it is coincidence!

Certainly worth considering for this type, although I don't think John V and Anna (if that's who they are) ever ruled in this area.

Ross G.

[Paleologos]

This is my ( Dioikitiriou) coin.
I think is the only one with visible letters and I can read in the right side of the reverse the letters OAN I agree with Glebe that probably it is John V with Anna of Savoy I agree also that it is not struck in Thessaloniki because of the style and the neat scyphate fabric.
I dont know why Bendall suggest that it is an issue of Asen brothers Ivan and Alexius....(we have female crown here!)


p.s In the Greek language Didymoteichon means twin walls...............I don`t know if it is coincidence!

Certainly worth considering for this type, although I don't think John V and Anna (if that's who they are) ever ruled in this area.

Ross G.

Dear Ross and board,
 this trachy Is still an enigmatic coin. I wrote that (probably) it is a specimen of Anna of Savoy and John V because of the female crowns. Bendal sees two masculin figures and believes that the figures are John vi and John v and that the coin was struck in a not official mint but in Thrace,
 I agree with the last because as you wrote too , the style and the neat scyphate fabric is it not a official mint. According to Bendalls identification the obverse of the trachion depicts the virgin standing Oran's while the reverse might represent two male emperors, either John v and vi or John v and his son Matthew instead of one male and one female based on this description and on the lack of similar coin finds in turkey bendalls precludes a Constantinopolitan issue and asks instead whether these trachia could have been found at Andrianoupolis or didymoteichon.
One problem is the similarity of the reverse with the coin of John V and Anna of Savoy (s.2516) ,
second the two female crowns! Regarding the first we have other examples of similarity about the second could be an error of the celator. But if it's not, and we admit that one of the two figures is female, then who is the female figure? Could be Irene Asanina?( Irene was crowned Empress in the city of Didymoteichon)
I know that Anna and John eve ruled in the area. Of course Of course my hypothesis about Didymoteichon is only a guess, becise of the obverse and the meaning of the name Didymoteichon. This is the reason for which I spoke about coincidence ...but I would like to speak also for something else that I noticed yesterday observing my coin. in the field low and right I can see the letter A I am sure that my coin it is not a double strike and I am sure that it is a letter ...so if I am not wrong A as 1 year of Regn or for the mint, like Adrianople ?

Regards Paleologos

[Paleologos]

Do you have a weight for this example?

Ross G.

Dear Ross,
the weight is 1.48

[glebe]

Do you have a weight for this example?

Ross G.

Dear Ross,
the weight is 1.48

Thanks for that.

Ross G.