bs_bs_banner Archaeometry 62, 1 (2020) 81–108 doi: 10.1111/arcm.12499 RETRACING MAGNA GRAECIA’ S SILVER: COUPLING LEAD ISOTOPES WITH A MULTI-STANDARD TRACE ELEMENT PROCEDURE* T. BIRCH† Centre for Urban Network Evolutions (UrbNet), Aarhus University, Moesgård Allé 20, 4230 DK-8270 Højbjerg, Denmark K. J. WESTNER Institut für Archäologische Wissenschaften, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Abt. II. Norbert-Wollheim-Platz 1 D-60621 Frankfurt am Main, Germany F. KEMMERS Institut für Archäologische Wissenschaften, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Abt. II. Norbert-Wollheim-Platz 1 D-60621 Frankfurt am Main, Germany S. KLEIN Deutsches Bergbau-Museum, Archäometallurgie, Am Bergbaumuseum 31 D-44791 Bochum, Germany and Frankfurt Isotope and Element Research Center (FIERCE), Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany H. E. HÖFER Institut für Geowissenschaften, Facheinheit Mineralogie, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Altenhöferallee 1 D-60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany and H.-M. SEITZ Institut für Geowissenschaften, Facheinheit Mineralogie, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Altenhöferallee 1 D-60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany and Frankfurt Isotope and Element Research Center (FIERCE), Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany This study presents the results of compositional and lead isotopic analysis of coinage issued by the Greek colonies of Syracuse, Metapontum, Taras and Thurium in the fifth to third centuries BCE. The data suggest that each colony in Magna Graecia, regardless of its motherland roots and despite ongoing conflicts between the cities, had access to the same silver, and that this supply was stable overall throughout their period of minting and issuing coinage. The paper retraces the silver sources of the colonies and points out a potential supply route for the metal. It includes a method development for a multi-standard quantification approach for laser abla- tion-inductively coupled-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) analysis of silver. KEYWORDS: MAGNA GRAECIA, SILVER COINAGE, WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN, LEAD ISOTOPES, TRACE ELEMENTS, SOUTHERN ITALY, GREEK *Received 3 December 2018; accepted 16 August 2019 †Corresponding author: email [email protected] © 2019 The Authors. Archaeometry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of University of Oxford This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. 82 T. Birch et al. INTRODUCTION Literary sources and archaeological evidence confirm that Greek communities began to appear c.750–725 BCE on the coast of southern Italy and the island of Sicily, with the colloquial term Magna Graecia used to describe these colonies (Fischer-Hansen et al. 2004, 250–251). These Greek poleis minted their own coinage, initially in silver, starting from as early as the mid-sixth century BCE. By the end of the third century BCE, Rome had become an important and powerful enterprise that dominated the coinage of southern Italy, putting an end to Greek issues (Rutter 1997, 99–100). The Greek colonies could have tapped into several different silver sources. All silver derives initially from an ore body, which has to be considered as the first potential source. Silver could have been extracted directly from surficial oxidized ores, but most would have derived from the cupellation of argentiferous Pb from smelting of sulphide ores, typically comprising mainly Pb sulphide (galena) besides complex silver-rich phases, for example, fahlore. Once mined, this silver may have travelled in trade form. This movement of silver across the Mediterranean and within the Aegean is well attested by numerous regionally widely spread ingot finds. Four stamped silver ingots from Selinus (Sicily) show the circulation of silver provenanced to Aegean sources, including Laurion, as well as potentially a Spanish silver source (Arnold Biucci 1988; Beer-Tobey et al. 1998). Pb isotope studies of Archaic eastern Greek coinage reveal that silver was mainly derived from the districts of Laurion and Siphnos and a third source with intermediate Pb isotope signatures, hypothesized to be located in Macedonia or Lydia (Gale et al. 1980). Figure 1 Locations of the four mints (cities) under investigation. [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary. com] © 2019 University of Oxford, Archaeometry 62, 1 (2020) 81–108 Retracing Magna Graecia’s silver 83 Once in circulation, silver may also have been acquired through war booty, gifts and the recycling of existing objects, including the remelting of old or foreign coinage (Howgego 1995, 24). This plethora of metal sources, from mine to existing metals, is well documented in classical works such as those by Livy, Pliny the Elder and Strabo, to name a few (cf. Rowan 2013a). The aim of this paper is to go beyond the historical and archaeological accounts alone and re- trace empirically the metal sources being used to mint the silver coinages of Magna Graecia. We studied the mints of Taras, Metapontum, Thurium and Syracuse in southern Italy (Fig. 1), all with a large and continuous production of silver coinage from the fifth to the third centuries BCE, and sampled coins spanning their complete chronology. MATERIALS A total of 70 coins minted at Taras, Metapontum, Thurium and Syracuse (Table 1) was sampled and analysed. A previous paper (Birch et al. in press) has already presented 17 further coins that were issued by various mints in Magna Graecia (Metapontum, Syracuse, Taras, Caulonia, Himera, Selinus and Sybaris/Thurium) in the Archaic period. What is interesting about investigat- ing these four poleis is that despite being located in quite close vicinity to one another, and all being Greek colonies, they were divided by territorial tensions, changing strategic partnerships and enemies, and their differential ‘motherland’ roots (Achaean, Corinthian and Spartan). As such, this presents an opportunity to identify whether such political–historical differences be- tween these Greek colonies are also reflected in their access to silver. Taras was founded by the Spartans in the late eighth century BCE, whilst Metapontum was founded by Greeks from Achaea (northern Peloponnese) in the mid- to late seventh century BCE (Fischer-Hansen et al. 2004, 251–252, 279). Thurium was the refoundation of the Achaean colony of Sybaris, a city that was destroyed or captured and refounded several times over in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE. Around 440 BCE, the city, by now dominated by settlers from the Peloponnese and Athens, renamed itself Thurium (Fischer-Hansen et al. 2004, 295–298, 304– 305). Between 280 and 272 BCE, all three cities came under the control of Rome (Rutter et al. 2001). Metapontum began minting coinage c.550 BCE, issuing silver staters based on the Achaean standard until c.280 BCE. Taras started its coin production c.510–500 BCE based on the nomos (comparable with Achaean staters), ending c.228 BCE. Thurium’s silver coinage, based on the Achaean weight standard as well, set off immediately after its foundation around the mid- fifth century BCE and continued until shortly after 280 BCE (Rutter et al. 2001). In antiquity, the Greek colony of Syracuse was the largest city on Sicily. It was founded in the second half of the eighth century BCE by colonists from Corinth. Syracuse began minting silver coins in the late sixth century BCE, based on the Attic standard, and continued to do so until its capture by Rome during the Second Punic War in 212 BCE (Fischer-Hansen et al. 2004, 225– 228; Fischer-Bossert 2012, 142–152). ANALYTICAL PROTOCOL Each coin was sampled threefold via drilling. Chips from the upper first millimetre were discarded and only fresh unadulterated metal was used for subsequent analysis. A part of the dril- lings from each coin was prepared as standard metallographic blocks (epoxy resin, ground and flatly polished), which were analysed for bulk major and minor elemental composition with an © 2019 University of Oxford, Archaeometry 62, 1 (2020) 81–108 84 © 2019 University of Oxford, Table 1 Summary of the coins analysed in this study Sample Mint Denomination HN reference Date FB date Ag Cu Pb Total 53Cr 55Mn 59Co 60Ni ID (years BCE) (years BCE) GE033 Metapontum Stater HN 1484-1486 470–440 – 96.87 0.05 2.94 99.86 1.2 0.8 bdl 0.3 GE036 Metapontum Stater HN 1507 430–400 – 96.00 1.49 2.29 99.78 0.5 2.0 0.2 1.5 Archaeometry GE037 Metapontum Stater HN 1526 400–340 – 94.68 4.32 0.50 99.49 0.3 0.7 2.5 10.4 GE041 Metapontum Stater HN 1528 400–340 – 97.31 1.79 0.11 99.21 0.6 1.0 3.0 5.6 GE042 Metapontum Stater HN 1534 400–340 – 94.10 5.05 0.09 99.24 0.3 1.3 8.3 29 GE045 Metapontum Stater HN 1525 400–340 – 96.84 2.69 0.12 99.64 0.3 bdl 2.2 4.3 62 TB014 Metapontum Stater HN 1540 350–340 – 92.87 5.79 0.80 99.47 0.4 0.4 6.2 12 , 1 (2020) 81 TB015 Metapontum Stater HN 1537 350–340 – 89.55 9.82 0.26 99.62 0.6 bdl 3.5 22 GE035 Metapontum Stater HN 1575 340–330 – 92.55 6.54 0.62 99.71 0.3 0.3 1.1 9.9 GE038 Metapontum Stater HN 1575 340–330 – 94.50 4.91 0.44 99.85 0.3 0.1 0.9 7.3 GE039 Metapontum Stater HN 1575 340–330 – 93.39 5.99 0.49 99.87 0.7 0.3 0.9 7.3 T. Birch – 108 GE044 Metapontum Stater HN 1575 340–330 – 92.95 6.23 0.66 99.84 0.4 0.6 1.8 13 TB016 Metapontum Stater HN 1575 340–330 – 93.06 6.15 0.62 99.83 0.5 1.0 1.7 17 TB017 Metapontum Stater HN 1575 340–330 – 93.31 6.09 0.48 99.88 bdl 0.2 1.8 10 et al.