Dear friends of ancient
historyThe
Koson staters, and perhaps their
history and problems, are widely known. Less well known is that gold staters of the Mithridatic
Lysimachus type were found together with them, which are at least as interesting historically. I would like to report about them here.
In 2004 I acquired the following gold
stater:
Coin:AV - gold
stater, 8.30g, 20mm, 0°.
minted 44-42 BC in
TomisObv.:
Head of the deified
Alexander r., with royal
taenia and
Ammon's horn,
behind dot and
monogram, in the curls behind the
head a
monogram (X).
Rev.: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩ[Σ] - ΛΥΣΙΜΑΧΟΥ (both from top to bottom).
between them
Athena Nikephoros seated left, in
chiton and
himation with Corinthian helmet
(with bush) and
aegis, on the outstretched right
Nike left. wreathing the name of the
king,
the left leaning on the
shield; in the background the lance
in the left
field ΘΕΜ, under the seat TO, point in front of the knee, under the throne lying
trident l., above and below a
dolphinRef.: a)
AMNG I/2, 2480, Taf.
XXI, 6 (ex. from
London, same die, also with the X in the curls!).
2nd class. Rough
style,
portrait reminiscent of Pharnakes II, dated by
Regling to 89-72
BC. Not struck by Mithradates himself.
b)
Mithridates VI de
Callatay p.141, this D4/R1 (same die)
c)
Moushmov 1785 (picture at
wildwinds.com with same die)
EF,
mint stateNote:This
stater corresponds to the
Lysimachus type Triton III, 1999, lot 476, p.97 (typical the X in the curls behind the
head).
The
alloy used for these
Lysimachus types is similar to that used for the numerous
Koson staters with
monogram. It consists of
fine gold with silver (up to 5%) and copper (up to 0.30%). This was probably the gold circulating in the Balkan region during this period (Constantinescu).
History of the Lysimachus types:The oldest document in which the
Lysimachus types are mentioned is by Wolfgang Lazius, published in 1598, but which he
had already written in 1551. In it he describes how the treasure was found in the waters of the river
Sargetia, in a vault that was destroyed in the upper
part by the roots of a tree. Fishermen are said to have discovered 40,000
gold coins there. Most of them bore the name of the
Thracian king Lysimachus ("
magna ex parte Lysimachi Thraciae regis Graecam inscriptionem ostendebant") in Greek. Subsequent searches by the authorities uncovered several thousand more coins.
Also from the 16th century is a fragment of a sermon by Mathesius Sarepta, who mentions this event in 1554. He was even able to examine some coins himself and identified them as coins of the
Lysimachus and
Koson type. He described these in detail.
Ascanio Centorio describes this episode somewhat differently in a
work from 1566. For him, it was heavy rains and floods that uncovered the treasure. This happened near the ruins of a Dacian city near Devna. According to him, it was a huge amount of coins, he estimates it to be more than a hundred thousand! But
his description is accurate: "
on one side was the image of Lysimachus and on the other a Victoria".
It is known that these coins were called "
heathen coins" at the time and were regarded as
medieval forgeries. Constantin
Preda is
still of this opinion in 1998!
Over the centuries, more and more of these coins were discovered, isolated or in
hoards. From the beginning of the 19th century there is a document containing a detailed description of a
Lysimachus type. This coin
had on its
reverse '
tridens cum delphini [...] in area monograma ΘΕΜ[...] intra sellam ΤΟ' (Winkler 1960).
The find story from 1998:In the meantime, the discovery story has been clarified. It happened as follows:
In August 1998, 2 treasure hunters, D. Baci and M. Mihăilă, found a huge
hoard of about 3600 staters of the Mithridatic
Lysimachos type near Sarmizetegusa Regia in the Oresti Mountains in
Romania, as well as some staters of Pharnakes II and some of Asander as
archon. This took place at a place called "
Şesul Căprăreţei lângă cărare (Plain of the
Goat - near the path)". These coins were illegally dug up and put on the international market. However, we know that some of these coins (including the coins of Pharnakes II and of Asander) were
still in
Romania at the end of 1999, because they were seen in the house of Traian Stănilă at that time, but not afterwards.
After these coins became known to the public, an intense debate began. In order to disguise their origin, the finders
had given different places where they were found.
In September 1999,
Harlan J.
Berk and
Donald Macdonald wrote in the
auction catalogue Triton III about the recent appearance of these coins:
"Over the summer of 1999, two important groups of gold staters, presumably from recent finds, came onto the market. One contained
posthumous Lysimachos staters and the other was a small group of Pharnakes II and Asander staters. No find spot is known,
nor do we know if the coins represent one
hoard, two
hoards or more."
At that time, the circumstances of the find were not yet known and several sites were discussed.
History of the hoard from 1998:Harlan J.
Berk wrote about my coin "It is an imitation of a gold
stater of
Lysimachus (323-281 BC), minted to pay the Thracian mercenaries that
Brutus recruited for
his fight against
Octavian and
Marcus Antonius".
Another interpretation was that they
had already been minted under Mithradates VI in 88-87 BC during the 1st Mithradatic War.
Today, however, the most probable theory is another:
The
Lysimachos staters were minted in
Tomis,
Istros,
Kallatis and
Byzantium. So they all came from the western Black Sea coast. There they began their journey, which took them to Sarmizetegusa Regia, more than 600km away. It was a
hoard of a small amount of staters of Pharnakes II and Asander as
archon from the western Black Sea coast, which
Burebista had conquered (Why not from
Olbia?), mixed with thousands of staters of the Mithridatic
Lysimachus type. It probably dates from 46 BC and was made after
Burebista's campaign from
Olbia to
Apollonia Pontica. We can see that we can only learn more if we deal with
Burebista and
his time.
Excursus: Burebista and his timeBurebista (d. c. 44 BC) was the first
king of the united state of the
Dacians. Partly by force, he united the Dacian tribes and became their
king in 82 BC. He built the fortress of Sarmizegetusa Regia. Sarmizegetusa Regia, also known as Sarmizegetusa (not to be confused with the
Roman colony
Ulpia Traiana
Augusta Dacica Sarmizegetusa) was a
military base and the capital of the ancient Dacian Empire until its destruction in 106 during the Second Dacian War of the
Roman Emperor
Trajan.
Burebista is mentioned in Strabo as
Byrebistas and
Boirebistas and in Jordanes "Getica" as
Buruista. Through conquests he considerably enlarged the Dacian heartland. Between 55 and probably before 48 BC, he conquered the Greek coastal cities on the Black Sea from
Olbia in the
north to
Apollonia Pontika in the south. At the height of
his power,
his empire stretched from the middle Danube to the Black Sea. In the
Roman civil war, he sided with Pompey. After the defeat of Pompey,
Caesar planned a campaign against the
Dacians, but this was prevented by
his death.
In 44 BC,
Burebista himself fell victim to a conspiracy of Dacian nobles and the Dacian Empire disintegrated into 4 partial kingdoms.
I have added the following pics:
(1) Statue of
Burebista in Orastie (Roamata, Wikimedia)
(2) Historical sitee of Sarmizegetus Regia (Lysy, Wikimedia). Numerous finds from archaeological excavations in the region point to a settlement dating back to the Neolithic period. The entire archaeological site is protected as a historical monument under Law No. 422/2001, passed in 2001.
(3) Map of the Dacian Empire at the end of
Burebista's reign ca. 44 BC (Curtisimo, Cointalk)
Sources: (1) Strabo, Geographika
(2) Jordanes, Getika
(3)
WikipediaLiterature:(1)
Regling,
AMNG I/2, 1910
(2) Der Kleine
Pauly(3) Lucian Munteanu, Some Remarks Concerning the
Gold Coins with the
Legend ‘ΚΟΣΩΝ’, in N.
Holmes (ed), Proceedings of the “XIV International Numismatic Congress,
Glasgow 2009”, I,
Glasgow 2011.
(4) Lucian Monteanu, Quelques considerations concernant les decouvertes
des monnaies d'or de
type Lysimaque dans la Dacie intra-carpatique, in
Ethnic Contacts and Cultural Exchanges
North and
West of the Black Sea from the Greek Colonization to the
Ottoman Conquest, Iaşi, 2005
(5) Emanuel Petac, About the Sarmizegetusa
Hoard from 1998 and the Possible Chronology of
Burebista’s Campaign to the Black Sea
Border, Notae Numismatica, Tom XIII, Krakau 2018
(6) Bogdan Constantinescu
et al., Archaeometallurgical Characterization of Ancient Gold Artifacts from Romanian Museums using XRF, Micro-PIXE and Micro-SR-XRF Methods, 2012
(7) Constantin
Preda, Ein neuer Vorschlag zur Chronologie der Koson-Münzen, in
Stephanos Numismatikos 1998, herausgeben von Dr.
Ulrike Peter, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
(8) Judit Winkler (1960), ‘Note despre colecţia monetară a lui Dániel Lészay’, Studii şi Cercetări de Numismatică 3, pp. 451-64.
(9) "A beautiful Gold
Stater... of
Brutus?", Curtisomo, Cointalk
I
hope you enjoy this article
Jochen
