‘Atiqot 84, 2016 A HOARD OF ANTONINIANI FROM QULA* ROBERT KOOL A hoard of silver billon was discovered in 1996 dispersed on both sides of a wall (W2522) that during a salvage excavation at the site of the bisected the room, presumably built long after situated the hoard was deposited. The cache came from ,(قولة) former Arab village of Quleh along the boundary between the coastal plain a mixed fill containing a small quantity of Late and the Judean foothills, about 5 km northeast Roman Ware and Cypriot Red Slip Ware that of the city of Lod (map ref. 19658–61/66030– date to the fifth–sixth centuries CE. No remains 60).1 The hoard dates to the second half of of a receptacle were found (Miriam Avissar and the third century CE and consists of 2109 Ianir Milevski, pers. comm.). antoniniani (Fig. 1), radiate-busted coins The coins were retrieved over a two-month containing less than 50% silver that were issued period: The first group, comprising 51 coins, by the Roman emperors in the third century CE was unearthed first; the bulk of the hoard, 2014 (the coin catalogue is appended to the online coins, was uncovered about a month and a half version of the article). later; and the final 44 coins were found the next The hoard was found in a room (Area E, day. One intrusive find, a fourteenth-century L25139; Fig. 2) in the northern part of a Mamlūk fals, was found with the hoard. structure identified as a farmhouse and dated to the Roman, Byzantine and Umayyad periods (third–eighth centuries CE). The coins lay * In memory of Miriam Avissar. Fig. 1. Coins from the hoard. 70 ROBERT KOOL Fig. 2. Room 25139, where the hoard was discovered (marked by an arrow). DATE OF DEPOSIT of Diocletian’s reform (293/4–296 CE) were introduced, for it contained none of the new The exact reasons for the concealment of the coin types. This seems to have taken place not hoard remain a matter for conjecture. However, long after the construction of the building. This two aspects of the hoard’s archaeological assumption is borne out by the in situ coins context suggest that the coins were forgotten and pottery found in the same archaeological by the time that Room 25139 was altered, context as that of the hoard. These coins sometime after the sixth century CE (Miriam include a silver tetradrachm of Philip I, dated Avissar and Ianir Milevski, pers. comm,). The 248/9 CE, found in an adjoining locus to the first aspect is that the mixed fill in which the south (L25140) and three antoniniani found in coins were found contained fifth–sixth century the southern corner (L25072) of the room in CE ceramics and seems to have been formed which the hoard was discovered. The date of when the inner wall was added. The second the tetradrachm is congruent with that of the aspect is that although most large hoards of earliest coin in the hoard, an antoninianus of similar weight (7.73 kg) were found buried in Philip I, dated 247 CE. Although this particular receptacles,2 no remains of a receptacle were tetradrachm did not belong to the hoard, found for this hoard. It thus seems probable similar heavy silver coins are often found in that the pot or cloth containing the hoard contemporary hoards alongside antoniniani disintegrated before or during the repair of the (Table 1). The three antoniniani were found room in the sixth century CE. This explains together, directly above the bedrock and a floor. why the coins were found dispersed below the The latest of these three coins dates to 293 CE, level of the later wall, on both its sides. during Diocletian’s reign, as does the latest When was the hoard deposited? The hoard’s coin in the hoard (295/6 CE). The pottery found composition suggests that it was deposited in in an adjoining foundation trench (L25259) of the early 290s CE, before the new currencies one of the walls of the structure is dated to A HOARD OF ANTONINIANI FROM QULA 71 Table 1. Antoniniani Hoards from the Roman East Hoards Archaeological Context Antoniniani and Earliest Latest Other Coins (N) Date (CE) Date (CE) Dura Europos No. 1 Excavation: in jar under embankment, 281 and 507 211 256 (Bellinger 1949:165–166) beside gate tetradrachms Dura-Europos No. 10 Excavation: under embankment, 150 and 393 238 256 (Bellinger 1949:175–177) beside main gate tetradrachms Dura-Europos No. 17 Excavation: ‘Pocket money’ in burial 45 251 260 (Bellinger 1949:181) of a soldier killed in the last defense of the town Dura-Europos “Corpses” Excavation: ‘Pocket money’ beside 82 251 260 (Bellinger 1949:187) burial remains of soldiers killed in the defense of the town and abandoned in a mine near defense tower Kafr Nebudi, near Hama Stray find: in the village of Kafr 600 244–249 260 (ancient Epiphania Nebudi (Carson 1967–1968) Susita 1951 (Unpublished) Excavation 7 260/261 261 Tel Batnân Stray find c. 3000 251 268 (Cumont 1917:21–22) Capernaum Excavation: in jar under a millstone, 1545 and 270 215 269 (Spijkerman 1958–1959) adhering together; west of an area of tetradrachms shops and agricultural installations, adjacent to the synagogue’s western wall Sebastia (Kadman 1967) Stray find 50 253 270 Bet She’an (Bland 1981) Stray find: purchased in Bet She‘an, 22 253 270 1871 Jenin (CH 5:1979) Stray find 219 253 270s Jerusalem, Mount of Olives Stray find: purchased in Jerusalem, 14 260 Early (Sweeney and Visona 1991) 1886–1891 270s Hama (ancient Epiphania) Stray find: in the vicinity ofH ama 312 271 272 (Seyrig 1966) Horbat Qastra 1996 Excavation: a funerary hoard 19 253 272 (Ancient Castra) (H. Sokolov, pers. comm.i) Syria 3 (Bastien and Stray find 370 254 283 Huvelin 1969) Nahr Ibrahim, near Jebail Stray find: in the village of Nahr 5200 266/7 284 (ancient Byblos; Pink Ibrahim 1963b) Syria A Stray find: purchased; source 136 268/9 284 (Brenot and Pflaum 1965) unknown Syria B Stray find: in the area of Antioch. The 701(?) 263 285/6 (Brenot and Pflaum 1965) hoard showed little sign of circulation Jafiya, Galilee (de Saulcy Stray find: small pot hoard 159 211 286–292 1868–1870; Kadman 1967) Orient (de Roquefeuil 1970) Stray find 480 256 285/93 Tiberias (Hamburger 1964) Excavation: in a room in a bath 99 268 293 complex dated to 3rd c. Syria 4 (Pflaum 1980) Stray find 61 251 293 i See n. 20. 72 ROBERT KOOL the third–fourth centuries CE. It can thus be Most (90%) of the 21 registered and published concluded that the building, and probably the hoards from this region have up to 800 coins. whole farmstead, was first built in the second In fact, two-thirds of these hoards contain 350 half of the third century CE. coins or less, which may indicate a proclivity for smaller hoards of antoniniani in the Roman East. Only two hoards that compare in size with COMPOSITION the Qula hoard have been found in the East: The Qula hoard consists exclusively of radiate the Capernaum hoard, discovered sometime antoniniani and aurelianiani,3 almost all of them between 1905 and 1921 on the northern shore minted in the Roman East. A comparison with of the Sea of Galilee (Spijkerman 1958–1959), similar hoards from Roman Syria, including which comprises 1545 antoniniani mixed with those deposited after Diocletian’s reform 393 tetradrachms; and the Nahr Ibrahim hoard, (293/4–296 CE), indicates that the presence or found in 1938 near Byblos, Lebanon, which absence of denominations other than antoniniani consists of 5200 antoniniani (Pink 1963a:16– (i.e., tetradrachms, denarii, folles) is not related 18). Similarly, hoards found in neighboring to the hoard’s size, but rather to its burial date Asia Minor usually contain no more than 800 (see Table 1). Mixed hoards of antoniniani and coins (i.e., Troy [Bellinger 1961:201–211], silver tetradrachms are characteristic of earlier Smyrna [Eddy 1967], Ankara [Kienast 1962], hoards, deposited up to the 260s CE in the East.4 Western Turkey A and B [Elks 1975] and Thereafter, from Claudius Gothicus’s reign Ephesus [Voetter 1913]). Two exceptions (268–270 CE) onward, tetradrachms or other are the Antioch-in-Pisidia hoard, with 1655 denominations are practically nonexistent in antoniniani (Cesano 1921), and the Canakkale both small and large hoards of antoniniani, with hoard, which contained 3029 antoniniani the exception of the Jafiya pot hoard from the (Pflaum and Bastien 1969). Only one very Galilee (de Saulcy 1868). Also noteworthy is the large deposit has been reported from the East: complete absence of Diocletian’s post-reform a hoard of 16,000 antoniniani, which was currencies, both from the Qula hoard and from allegedly found in the early 1960s in the area of other contemporary hoards deposited in the East el-‘Arish, on the ancient Via Maris in northern during the 290s. Sinai. Unfortunately, it was dispersed before it The same phenomenon is seen in hoards from was studied (King and Spaer 1977:66). Western Europe that were deposited during the In the Roman West, in contrast, very large same period (Besley and Bland 1983:15). As hoards of antoniniani are more common. In Table 1 illustrates, during Diocletian’s large-scale Britain, the Cunetio hoard, deposited in the reform (293/4–296 CE), the nummus, a silver- 270s CE, contained 54,951 coins, virtually all wash bronze coin and a radiate-copper fraction, antoniniani (Besley and Bland 1983), while the completely replaced the radiate antoniniani.