Hoards and Stray Finds in Sweden
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Hoards and Stray Finds in Sweden Hoards Gotland, Fröjel par., Mulde Stockholm Numismatic Institute www.archaeology.su.se/numismatiska Lennart Lind Other publications by Stockholm Numismatic Institute - NFG On our website you will find various publications. Most of them are available as PDF for down- loading. Read more on our website: Editorial note Table of Contents www.archaeology.su.se/english/stockholm-numismatic-institute/publications-nfg Roman Denarii, Hoards and Stray Finds Hoards and Stray Finds in Sweden ........1 in Sweden is published by Stockholm Synopsis ..............................................2 CNS - Coins from the Viking-Age found Myntstudier is a numismatic periodical in Numismatic Institute (Gunnar Ekström chair in Sweden is a project under The Royal Swedish published on the Internet since 2003 in numismatics and monetary history) at Gotland, Fröjel par., Mulde ..................3 Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. by NFG. Stockholm University. Hoards are defined as List of coins ..........................................3 The acronym of the project is CNS based A total of more than 80 seminar papers two or more coins or one coin found together on the title of the publication. (CORPUS have been written. They cover the period with other objects. Barbarous imitation, NUMMORUM SAECULORUM IX-XI QUI c. 800-1800. The files (mainly in Swedish) are Each issue will cover one or more finds. In die-links outside Sweden .......................5 IN SUECIA REPERTI SUNT, CATALOGUE available for downloading at: the PDF-version the photos can be magnified OF COINS FROM THE VIKING AGE www.archaeology.su.se/numismatiska- Plates ..................................................6 c. ten times. FOUND IN SWEDEN). So far c. 259,000 forskningsgruppen/nfg-s-publikationer/ uppsatser The series is edited by Kenneth Jonsson Fig. 1. Mints in the Roman Empire coins have been found. Nine printed volumes and the layout is made by Ylva Holmberg represented on denarii in the Swedish were published 1975-2010. They list finds On our website you will also find informa- Jansson. finds. ...................................................9 with more than 57,000 coins. The aim now is tion about our research as well as maps show- It is only distributed in PDF-format on the to publish all remaining finds on the Internet. ing mints and coin finds in Sweden. Roman Emperors and Internet which enables everybody to print it Empresses represented in Denarii ........10 themselves. After downloading the file it can be printed Fig. 2. Swedish provinces ...................11 using Adobe Reader which is available for free Fig. 3. Parishes on Gotland .................12 at: www.adobe.com Old numbers in the series can be down- Fig. 4. Finds with Roman denarii loaded at the website: www.archaeology. in Sweden. ........................................14 su.se/english/stockholm-numismatic-institute/ publications-nfg. Fig. 5. Finds with Roman denarii on Gotland. .......................................15 The rate of publication depends on when a new manuscript is ready. Literature ...........................................16 © Stockholm Numismatic Institute & the Abbreviations ....................................16 author. Text: Lennart Lind Photos: Kenneth Jonsson Maps: Ylva Holmberg Jansson & ISSN 2001-6743 Kenneth Jonsson Covers: No. 50, barbarous imitation of Marcus Aurelius. See also p. 5. Literature Roman Denarii Alram, M., Denk, R., Szaivert, W. & Dick, F., Die Münzsammlungen der Benediktiner- Hoards and Stray Finds in Sweden stifte Kremsmünster und St.Paul im Lavanttal. Thesaurus Nummorum Romanorum et Byzan- tinorum, 4, Vienna 1983 Bolin, S. 1926: Fynden av romerska mynt i det fria Germanien. Studier i romersk och äldre germansk Background All denarii found in Sweden are worn, those historia. Lund. Roman Imperial denarii of the fi rst two or on Gotland, however, to a larger degree than three centuries of our era may be regarded as those from the rest of the country, sometimes Lind, L. 1981: Roman Denarii Found in Sweden. 2. Catalogue. Text. Stockholm. Stockholm Studies the fi rst coins in Sweden. On the territory of making the attribution diffi cult or impossible. in Classical Archaeology, 11:2. present-day Sweden some 8,000 pieces have Th is is as true of extant coins found in the nine- been unearthed in modern times, most of teenth century as of those found more recently. --- 1988: Romerska denarer funna i Sverige. Stockholm. them, c. 7,000, on Gotland, the island in the Th e diff erences in the degree of wear be- Baltic. Apart from one or two stray fi nds with tween the denarii found on Gotland and those --- 1993: “Th e Monetary Reforms of the Romans and the Finds of Roman Denarii in Eastern Republican coins, the earliest coins belong to from the rest of Sweden have long been known and Northern Europe”, Current Swedish Archaeology 1 (1993), pp. 135-144 (also available on the reign of Nero (54-68). Denarii later than to and discussed by scholars. Sture Bolin in the Internet at: www.arkeologiskasamfundet.se/csa/Dokument/Volumes/csa_vol_1_1993/csa_ AD 200 are rare, and no such coin later than 1926 suggested that the coins on Gotland had vol_1_1993_s135-144_lind.pdf). Severus Alexander (222-235) or, perhaps, been worn through circulation on the island Gordian III (238-244) can be connected with (Bolin 1926, pp. 274-278), but the composition --- 2007: “A group of barbarous Roman denarii represented in Sweden and Hungary (and Germany other denarii, i.e. of an earlier date. With the of the large hoards, of which Bolin had insuf- and Britain?)”, in Andersen, M., Horsnaes, H. W. & Moesgaard, Chr. (eds.): Magister Monetae. exception of late Roman and early Byzantine fi cient knowledge, makes such a hypothesis Studies in Honour of Jørgen Steen Jensen. Copenhagen, pp. 53-58. solidi of the fi fth and sixth centuries, ancient unlikely (see Lind 1988 pp. 65-85 and 1993). coins of other origins or denominations are Most probably the Gotlandic denarii were Östergren, M. 1981: Gotländska fynd av solidi och denarer - en undersökning av fyndplatserna. rare or non-existent. heavily worn already when they arrived at the Stockholm. Arkeologiska skrifter från Riksantikvarieämbetets Gotlandsundersökningar island. Th e diff erence may be chronological, i.e. (RAGU), 1. Find context the coins which ended up on Gotland may have Denarii have sometimes been found in the done so at a later date than those ending up in course of archaeological excavations of pre- the rest of Sweden, and/or geographical, i.e. the historic settlements and graves, and, more coins found on Gotland may have had another recently, with the help of metal detectors. In origin on the European continent than those contrast to what is the case in some other coun- from the rest of the country. Abbreviations tries, however, the metal detector revolution To the genuine coins can be added a number has not dramatically increased the number of of barbarous imitations, usually found together ATA - Antikvarisk-topografi ska arkivet, Stockholm. known coins in Sweden. Th e bulk of the coins with offi cial denarii. Th ey almost exclusively known and extant has been brought to light belong to Gotland, and constitute about one GF - Gotlands Fornsal/Gotlands Museum, Visby. casually, most often in the course of agricultural per cent of the total number of coins found GF C - Gotlands Fornsal, inventory series C. activities. Most of the coins available for study there. Th e largest hoard of Roman denarii today came to light before 1940. found in Sweden (and Scandinavia), Sindarve Inv. - Inventory. on Gotland, originally 1,500 coins (1,488 ex- Degree of wear tant), has four or fi ve barbarous imitations. RIC - H. Mattingly & E.A. Sydenham, Th e Roman Imperial Coinage I-. London 1923-. Denarii are rarely found with contemporary Die-links between barbarous imitations found coins of other denominations but sometimes in Sweden and on the European continent have SHM - Historiska museet/ Th e National Historical Museum, Stockholm. with late Roman and early Byzantine solidi. been demonstrated. 16 2013: 1 2013: 1 1 Collections Th e Roman Denarii in Europe Most of the denarii available for study are Roman denarii in Sweden are found in the most today kept in the collections of the Kun- northerly region of Europe, but they are not, as gliga Mynt kabinettet in Stockholm and the is well known, the only such coins discovered Gotlands Muse um in Visby on Gotland. Th e to the north of the Roman Imperial frontiers. large number of coins still extant from early Denarii have been found outside the old Ro- Fig. 5. Finds with Roman denarii fi nds is due to conditions special to Sweden. man Limes in a broad, west-to-east belt, from on Gotland. On the one hand the country has been spared the North Sea and the Rhine to the Donets from wars for a very long time, since 1815, in Basin (and occasionally even further to the east fact; on the other hand there has been a strict and north-east). In what is today Poland, for enforcement from an early date of laws con- instance, a compass of land never part of the cerning fi nds in the earth. Th e earliest hoard Roman Empire, the number of denarii found of denarii from which coins are still extant was may amount to 100,000 or more. Any expla- found in 1834, and denarius hoards unearthed nation as to the presence of denarii in Sweden in the 1860s and 1870s are completely or almost must take those found on the European conti- completely preserved. nent into consideration. Lennart Lind Synopsis EMPEROR YEARS GF INV. LIND RIC Nero A.D. 54-68 1 1 1 Denarii Trajan A. D. 98-117 4 4 4 No. of Coins Hadrian A. D. 117-138 9 8 9 1 Aelius Caesar A. D. 136-138 – 1 – 2 - 9 Antoninus Pius A. D. 138-161 12 4 13 10 - 49 Faustina I (wife) – 6 – 50 - 99 Marcus Aurelius A.