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Author Topic: The Long/Lone fate of the Poggio Pincenze Hoard IGCH 2056  (Read 708 times)

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Offline cicerokid

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The Long/Lone fate of the Poggio Pincenze Hoard IGCH 2056
« on: March 05, 2022, 10:06:04 am »



Hoards are vital to the story and chronology of coins but interpretation is vexed and most are not discovered in controlled excavations but as accidental finds or by illegal metal detector search.
By both means the coins can disappear either into “trade” or into a museum where they can languish unpublished or worse, back into trade again.
In trade the coins are not always lost and contacts between academics and dealers can lead to a satisfactory sort of reconstruction as in the famous and highly important Gaziantep Hoard 1994 by Meadows and Houghton
For the study of the New Style Silver Coinage of Athens a two volume publication of that title was published by Margaret Thompson as ANS 10 in 1961.She using obverse die transference, hoard interpretation and stylistic
considerations fashioned this Hellenistic coinage into a chronological sequence .Unfortunately her absolute dating was in error and the coinage is now believed to have run from c164 BC to c 42 BC.
A very vexed portion of the New Style coinage are those coins that run down to and beyond the sack of Athens in March 86 BC by Sulla during the first Mithradatic war: the Achilles Heel that tarnished Miss Thompson’s achievement but opened up lots of New Style comment..

In her hoards section in the NSSCA above, she wrote of a find in Italy named the Abruzzi Hoard and its chequered history.

It seems the hoard was split into portions and quickly dispersed in trade, (where some was bought by the ANS and published in NSSCA hoard plates), but a portion was seized by the authorities and placed in some provincial museum. The above listing is what she could reconstruct and seemingly constitutes the situation in 1961.
Her publication of the NSSCA bought about a criticism by Lewis in the Numismatical Chronicle 1962 of her absolute dating and hoard analysis, and in the same NC edition there followed a riposte by Thompson herself.
In “Athens Again” is the first general publication of the seized portion of the Abruzzi hoard. She stated it was found by an unnamed colleague in an unnamed provincial museum, who noted these general details.
51 New Style Tetradrachms
1 Kointos/Charmostra (2 Ears of Corn) New Style “Imitation”
4 Sullan Type with Monograms
3 Mithradates Tetradrachms dated to 90/89 BC
10 Cappadocian drachms said to be Ariarathes VI
“Loads” of Achaean League triobols
She said this latest portion somehow muddied the criticism of Lewis’s use as an indicator that the New Style carried on after the Sullan siege and not the series ended with it. I don’t see it.
At some time between 1962 and 1969 the two portions of the Abruzzi hoard were united and named the Poggio Picenze Hoard and nominated as IGCH 2056.
The next mention I could find was by Otto Morkholm in a paper in “Essays in Greek Coinage presented to Stanley Robinson” akaEssays Robinson” Clarendon Press 1968. In “The coinages of Ariarathes VIII and IX of Cappadocia”.
Since the early 1960’s B. Simonetta had published articles on Cappadocian coinage and Otto Morkholm disagreed: not only with the attribution but on the status of exergual letters. This became acrimonious with a ding-dong numismatical and then personal battle gracing later NC’s publications. 
As far as I can judge Otto Morkholm’s views are essentially correct similar to a situation viz a viz Lewis and Margaret Thompson’s NSSCA where a great work was quickly undermined but in this case with courtesy.
It seems the Roman Republican coin expert Crawford publicised the combined hoard, but the denarii were claimed to have dispersed into trade (NSSCA), which he published as RRCH 255 in 1969, but noted 97 New Styles. Obviously the imitation has been added to the official New Styles along with the Sullan types plus a bit of erroneous addition?
The provincial museum as the holder of the second portion was identified as Chieti.
H B Mattingly in “L. Julius Caesar, Governor of Macedonia” 1979 briefly mentioned the Kointos /Charmostra “Imitation” and the Poggio Picenze hoard in a footnote on his re-arrangement of some of the post-Sullan New Style coinage.
In 1999 Jennifer Warren, (in “The Achaian League Silver Coinage Controversy Resolved: A Summary”), on summarizing the position of the Achaean League coinage and a supporter of Boehringher’s insights mentioned the Poggio Picenze hoard (by implication the provincial museum’s portion since the Abruzzi hoard contained no Achaean League coins). She hoped that the various hoards she mentioned should be quickly published.
The real combined portions are as follows;
80 Athens New Style Tetradrachms
13 Sulla tetradrachms
2 Byzantion late post Lysimachi Tetradrachms
7 Mithradates VI Tetradrachms
1 Nicomedes III Tetradrachm
4 Ariarathes IX Tetradrachm and 10 Drachms
250 Achaean League Hemidrachms
c 200 Roman Republican denarii ?
In pursuing this hoard I have found that the provincial museum is the Museo Archaeolgica d’ Abruzzo Villa Frigerj in Chieti, Italy, and I am in contact with them in the hope of getting photographs at least of the owl/amphora Athens style coins so that I can identify them from Thompson (or not) and publish them on academia.edu.
Of course, full publication involves not only Individual identification but also weight, orientation, size and an assessment of wear and condition, these later attributes might not be possible but are less important. Photographs will generally show most condition details.
The full hoard published as a whole, and not just picked parts, probably still tells us that it was as Thompson originally surmised as the lootings and pay of a Sullan soldier from how many various victims and baggage trains during his Mithradatic war service we will never know. The denarii, if they ever really existed, might have been obtained in Italy. Sulla had to fight when he got back and maybe the hoard is evidence of the veteran’s last unlucky throw of the dice.

John Nisbet
October 2018

Obviously in the 40 0dd months since I have written this I have been in sporadic contact with the Chieti Museum but now have been passed on to a pair of of personages , the Famous Dr. Rosaria Mancarini being one of them but the email address was not accurate! I even wrote to the Italian Embassy to see if they could help in contacting them and get something done but I fear Italian Bureaucracy will defeat all. And it will be another 70+ years before anything else happens. Dr Jennifer Warren died before Chieti responded on the Achaean league coinages where released and I guess I shall join the choir celestial before someone cleans the glass and wonders what is in this cabinet before purloining the contents..

Sadly this only confirms my long held suspicion about museums, they are only there to keep people in a job, so that they can be obstructive as they can and no questions asked about such obstructiveness.  See Corby Museum Northamptonshire UK selling a masterpiece of Old Kingdom art for some more shoes!

So RIP Scholarship.
Timeo Danaos afferentem coronas

Offline cicerokid

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Re: The Long/Lone fate of the Poggio Pincenze Hoard IGCH 2056
« Reply #1 on: March 12, 2022, 08:04:25 am »
One final effort to the Italian Embassy to give the museum in Chieti the prod?

Maybe they are more interested in given another multiple green light to a certain ex KGB guy
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