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Fred S. Kleiner Photographs by Eugene Vanderpool, Jr GetPedia Excavations of the Athenian Agora Picture Book No. 1s Prepared by Fred S. Kleiner Photographs by Eugene Vanderpool, Jr. Produced by The Meriden Gravure Company, Meriden, Connecticut Cover design: Coins of Gela, L. Farsuleius Mensor, and Probus Title page: Athena on a coin of Roman Athens Greek and Roman Coins in the Athenian Agora AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CLASSICAL STUDIES AT ATHENS PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY 1975 1. The Agora in the 5th century B.C. HAMMER - PUNCH ~ u= REVERSE DIE FLAN - - OBVERSE - DIE ANVIL - 2. Ancient method of minting coins. Designs were cut into two dies and hammered into a flan to produce a coin. THEATHENIAN AGORA has been more or less continuously inhabited from prehistoric times until the present day. During the American excava- tions over 75,000 coins have been found, dating from the 6th century B.c., when coins were first used in Attica, to the 20th century after Christ. These coins provide a record of the kind of money used in the Athenian market place throughout the ages. Much of this money is Athenian, but the far-flung commercial and political contacts of Athens brought all kinds of foreign currency into the area. Other Greek cities as well as the Romans, Byzantines, Franks, Venetians, and Turks have left their coins behind for the modern excavators to discover. Most of the coins found in the excavations were lost and never recovered-stamped into the earth floor of the Agora, or dropped in wells, drains, or cisterns. Consequently, almost all the Agora coins are small change bronze or copper pieces. When silver or gold coins were dropped they were searched for until found. In addition to coins, the American excavators have had the good fortune to locate a building which very likely served as the Athenian mint from the late 5th century B.C. until at least the time of the Roman emperor Augustus (27 B.c.-A.D. 14). The building is situated at the southeast corner of the Agora, next to the Southeast Fountain House (I). Very little of the structure remains today because of later rebuilding in the area. Part of the building lies beneath the Church of the Holy Apostles. The mint was provided with strong poros walls, befitting a structure in which large quantities of bullion and coins must have been stored. Inside there were at least two furnaces, two cement-lined water basins, and a large drain, all of which were necessary for the production of ancient coins. GREEK AND ROMAN MINTING TECHNIQUE ALLTHE COINS illustrated in this book were handmade. The ancient method of striking coins was quite simple and required only a few basic tools. 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. Often the metal was heated to a molten state and then poured into disc-shaped molds, assuring a uniform weight for the coins. This was 3. Bronze flans and a rod from the Athenian mint. especially important for gold and silver coins, which were accepted in com- merce because of their bullion value. An alternate method, useful for bronze coins which passed by size rather than by exact weight, is documented by finds in the Athenian mint. Bronze rods were forged by hammering and individual flans were cut from them, either by repeated chisel strokes, as was the case with the late 1st-century B.C. flans illustrated (3), or by sawing, as was true of the Athenian bronze coins of the late Roman period (4). To stamp images on the prepared flans, it was necessary to cut dies- negative designs-either in iron or in a very hard bronze alloy containing a high proportion of tin. Coin dies were of two types (2). The lower die, which bore the image of the obverse face of the coin, usually a deity or ruler, was fixed in an anvil. The upper die, which produced the reverse type of the coin, was cut at the end of a punch. Few ancient dies survive today, as they were generally systematically destroyed by the mints because of their value as tools for coining money. The craftsmen who engraved such dies were often first-rate artists, and in Sicily and elsewhere coins struck from signed dies are known. In the final stage of the minting process, the prepared flan was heated to make it malleable and placed, with the aid of tongs, on the anvil die. The punch die was then centered on the flan and stamped into it with a hammer, simultaneously producing impressions on both sides of the coin (2). Recent experiments with modern dies have shown that ancient dies might have pro- 4. Two Athenian bronze coins struck from the same obverse die. duced 10,ooo or more coins before breaking. Although only a very small percentage of the coins struck in antiquity survives today, it is still easy to find two or more coins struck from common dies. Many times, two coins struck from the same obverse die will have different reverses (4). This proves that the two types were contemporary or successive issues of the same mint. Sometimes the laborious process of preparing new flans for striking was avoided by the re-use of old coins, usually those of foreign mints. These coins were heated and struck just like new coin blanks. Often the old coin types were not completely obliterated by the new dies and such coins, with two or more successive images visible, are said to be ‘overstruck.’ Overstriking oc- casionally served political as well as practical ends. One overstruck coin found in the Agora was issued by Boiotia with a facing Demeter head on the obverse and Poseidon on the reverse (5). The undertype (the re-used earlier coin) is a Macedonian bronze coin with a Herakles head on the obverse and a horseman on the reverse. The Macedonian kings had controlled Boiotia and Attica for a large part of the 3rd century B.C. Macedonian garrisons were placed in Thebes and Athens, and Macedonian coins became the local cur- rency. After the death of Antigonos Gonatas and the removal of the garrisons in 229, the Macedonian coins were restruck with civic types both in Boiotia and Athens, thereby erasing the memory of the Macedonian hegemony. 5. An ‘overstruck‘ coin. A facing Demeter head is stamped on top of a profile head of HeraMes in a lion’s skin. On the reverse, the forelegs of a horse are visible below Poseidon’s hips. 6. Electrum stater of Kyzikos. 7. Silver stater of Aigina. THE EARLIEST COINS TRANSACTIONSin precious metals, in the form of nuggets, rings, bars, jewelry, etc., are documented from very ancient times. Coins-metal discs of fixed weight stamped with the badge of the issuing authority-were not introduced until the second half of the 7th century B.C. The invention of coinage took place in western Asia Minor, probably in Lydia. The metal used for the earliest coins was an alloy of gold and silver, electrum, which occurs naturally in Lydia. The first coins were probably designed not for use in daily commerce but for official payments such as taxes or harbor dues. The standard unit was the electrum stater (6). Subdivisions of this large de- nomination, also struck in electrum, existed from the beginning. The earliest coins were stamped with images on one side only (6-8). The reverses of the coins bore only the impression of the punch which forced the metal into the anvil die (2). Animal types dominate the first coinages of Lydia and neighboring Ionia. No early electrum coins have been found in the Athenian Agora, but a 5th-century B.C. electrum stater of Kyzikos turned up in 1970 (6). As on the earliest coins, the reverse is a simple punch, although by this time it had developed into a conventional four-section incuse square. The obverse is stamped with a bull, one of many local types, and a small tunny fish, the civic badge of Kyzikos. The first mint to strike coins on or near the Greek mainland was that of Aigina (7). The earliest Aiginetan coins are of silver and can be dated to the second quarter of the 6th century B.C.They bore a design only on the ob- verse, in this case a sea turtle, appropriate for a maritime trading state. The reverse punch was quite irregular at first, but later, as in the example illus- trated, the reverse die was engraved with a five-part incuse square. These coins, based on Ionian models, replaced the older Aiginetan currency in the form of iron cooking-spits. Some of these spits have been found in the Argive Heraion and are exhibited in the Athens Numismatic Museum. Two of the standard denominations of Greek coins derive from this primitive form of money-the obol, from obelos, a spit, and the drachma or drachm (=6 obols), from drax, a handful (of spits). 8. Athenian ‘Wappenmiinzen,’ 6th century B.C. THE SILVER COINAGE OF ATHENS THECITY OF ATHENSwas singularly fortunate in possessing within its own territory a rich source of silver from the mines at Laurion, near Sounion. The Laurion mines made Athens one of the richest Greek cities and provided silver for its coins for 500 years. The first coins struck by Athens (8) differ significantly from the later Athenian issues (9) which were to become famous all over the ancient world. Like the early Asia Minor electrum pieces and the silver coins of Aigina, the earliest Athenian issues have designs on the obverse only.
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