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Roman denarii of Tiberius and Caligula discovered in the drainagebasin of the Wisłoka River in southern Poland

100%

Dymowski A.

Acta Archaeologica Carpathica

2013

vol. XLVIII

273-284

To date only four roman denarii issued in the period between the coming to power of Tiberius in 14 AD and the monetary reform of Nero in 64 AD are known from Poland, all of them single finds. Three — two Tiberius and one Caligula — were discovered in a small area bordering the river Ropa, the left-hand tributary of the Wisłoka. Presumably these coins had found their way to the area north of the Carpathian range from the south. In seeking to identify possible causes of their influx we need to pinpoint, first, factors related to the functioning and decline of the Kingdom of Vannius, the client state of the Roman Empire, established presumably in the southwestern area of today’s Slovakia and in Moravia. An alternative interpretation is to link the coin finds in question with the impact from Dacian culture on the area to the north of the Carpathians. irrespective of the causes of the coin influx, these coin finds, definitely not typical on the territory of Poland, point to the existence in the drainage basin of the Wisłoka around 50 Ad of some special circumstances that we can hope to see illuminated by the results of future archaeological research in the region.

The Common People and Material Relics of Antiquity the Afterlife of Ancient Coins in the Territory of Present-Day Poland in the Medieval and Modern Periods

51%

Bogucki M., Dymowski A., Śnieżko G.

Studies in Ancient Art and Civilization

2017

vol. 21

275-297

Ancient coinage, almost exclusively Roman denarii from the 1st or 2nd century AD, constitutes a small percentage of hoards and other assemblages dated (with the latest coins present) to either the Middle Ages or to the modern period in the territory of present-day Poland. Such finds can be seen as strongly indicating that ancient coinage did function as means of payment at that time. This hypothesis is further supported by written sources. Moreover, ancient coins have also been recorded at other sites in medieval and modern period contexts e.g. in burial sites, which are less easy to interpret than hoards. Finds often include pierced coins and others showing suspension loops, which suggests they may have been used as amulets, jewellery or devotional medals. Other finds, such as Roman coins placed in alms boxes in modern period churches in Silesia, also point to a religious context. At the same time, written sources attest that at least since the Late Middle Ages, Roman denarii were known to common people as ‘St John’s pennies’. The name is associated with a Christian interpretation of the image of the emperor’s head on the coin, resembling that of John the Baptist on a silver platter.

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1 Acta Archaeologica Carpathica

1 Studies in Ancient Art and Civilization

2 Dymowski A.

1 Bogucki M.

1 Śnieżko G.

1 2017

1 2013

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Roman denarii of Tiberius and Caligula discovered in the drainagebasin of the Wisłoka River in southern Poland

The Common People and Material Relics of Antiquity the Afterlife of Ancient Coins in the Territory of Present-Day Poland in the Medieval and Modern Periods