Featured A Beautiful Gold Stater... of Brutus?

The author argues that Koson was likely a son of Burebista and that the term DROUEIS is etymologically related to the celtic term Druids. However, he points out that Koson was not a Celt or a Celtic Druid. Instead, the term Druid may have entered the Dacian language from a period some 200 years earlier, when Celts lived in the area (much like the term Caesar survided in German as Kaiser). The author aruges that the term DROUEIS may simply have signified Koson's high rank among the Getae (cf. p. 98)

The author also mentiones that the monograms on the gold statere of Koson cannot be resolved as Olbia (p. 93). The silver Drachms have reportedly been found near Sarmizegetusa (p. 88).

The communis opinio would likely be that the gold statere were also minted under this king or Droueis Koson in central Dacia.

I think the resolustion of the monogram as BUR refering to a placename Buridava, as suggested by Severus Alexander, is very attractive.



PS
The author also discusses the authenticity of the new Drachms. Despite considerable scepticism, he regards them as genuine.

 

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Beautifully written article and beautiful coins - I take off my hat to you

 

@Curtisimo many thanks for such an important thread and excellent writeup!
I can add to this a link to russian language article (I hope Google translator will help):
http://ancientrome.ru/publik/article.htm?a=1317814229

The sence of article is that a macedonian type drachm with KOZON are a coins of odrissian-thrace tsar Cotis II coined about 160 BC. Geto-Dacian Cotison looks like Cotis IV and staters named as for far predesessor also KOZON and are coined for pay geto-dacian mercenaries which was send by Cotis IV to Octavian at 40-30 BC.

I can also add a coin from my collection. I have one without monogram.

 

A real winner, wow what a coin, fascinating type in absolute beautiful detail. Congrats Curtis I'm green with envy.

 

Well, @Curtisimo, I seem to be obsessing about your coin and your post. You'd better write another intriguing post soon so I can think about something else!

@Al Kowsky mentioned that there are actually three varieties of staters, and that does seem to be the case. In the reference that @Sulla80 linked (thanks!) Lucian Munteanu distinguishes between the "simple" monograms, as on Curtisimo's coin, and the "complex" monograms. He also suggests the metal content is different between the two, with the simple monograms having lower gold content (citing Petolescu and others, I haven't tracked down these references). This suggests three separate issues, of course: simple monogram, complex monogram, and no monogram.


I've added the "messy" (mis-struck) simple monogram in the middle as part of a suggestion for how things went: first the simple monogram was struck (using Dacian gold?), and then (years later?) the complex monogram was struck (using looted Greek gold?). If the engraver of the complex monogram was illiterate but did his level best to copy a messy mis-struck version of the simple monogram – messily struck coins are quite common – that would explain the bizarre appearance of the complex monogram.

The no-monogram type could have been struck anywhere before, during, or after that timeline.

(NB: Yes, the complex monogram above is in silver - it seems all the drachms are of this variety. They appear to share an obverse die with the complex monogram staters. In fact the whole series seems to feature a very small number of obverse dies, maybe only 3, one for each variety! Thanks to @Curtisimo for discussion on this point. Maybe he will do the work to confirm it, I am too lazy. )

That said, it is actually possible to recover the B+P+Y from the complex monogram too:

This shows the rho in green, the upsilon in red (either upside down or, a bit wonky, sideways), while the light blue shows how a B is completed from the existing rho.

Personally I think the copying of a mis-struck simple monogram is more likely than this weird mess being an intentional B+P+Y. I also think a Latin BR isn't very likely either, although it must be admitted it's a little easier to recover that from the complex monogram than from the simple monogram. (But what's with the upper parts of the red upsilon then? ) Maybe that's what Head et al. were looking at when they came up with their highly idealized and inaccurate versions of the monogram, as pictured by Curtisimo here.

Of course, they didn't have the additional knowledge we now have of the Buridava archaeological complex, or the First-Meris-type drachms - I'll post a bit more on Buridava/Cosota later. My suspicion now is that the large, wealthy settlement in the valley was known in Dacian as "Cos...", while the principle fortress was known as Buridava. Meaning that "KOΣON" refers to the settlement. Makes a lot more sense of the grammar on the coins too!

 

I love this thread and all the ideas put forth! @Severus Alexander-- great work on those additional examples and theory.

!!

Yes!

 

OK, here’s the promised further comment, which is focused on some hypothesized linguistic derivations of the terms we find on these coins. I’ll start with “Buridava” before moving on to the main course, “Cosota.” Sorry, this is a bit long!

So: the word “dava” seems to mean “fortress or city”, not just any old settlement. Something large enough to be a city would include a fortress as an important component, but a fortress need not be accompanied by a city. Since the word “dava” (going back to Greek sources) is included in place names applying to both cities and mere fortresses, it seems likely that the original meaning is just “fortress.” So I tentatively conclude that the name “Buridava” originally referred to a fortress. That’s even consistent with how archaeologists and others refer to it now, e.g. “The area is rich in archaeological monuments and sites, like the Dacic Buridava fortress, 1st-2nd century BC, on the Cosota Hill.”

Cosota Hill! Yes, this is the other important place name in the area. “Cosota” is used locally for the village where the ruins were first discovered, the surrounding hillside, and the whole valley where the ruins are buried:

Cosota is located on the right bank of the Sărata brook and is known especially by the most important systematic archeological researches and discoveries from Vâlcea county, here being identified with the ancient Dacian fortress Buridava…. The Cosota Foundation ("Fundatura Cosotei") is surrounded on three sides by Cosota Hill.... the hill surrounds the civilian settlement from the point of Fundatura Cosotei on three sides with an opening to the north, towards the Sărata brook. The hill has three descending heights, all inhabited in antiquity… (Translated from Situri arheologice din oraşul Ocnele Mari, judeţul Vâlcea, by Mariana Iosifaru.)​

and

The place where Buridava is situated is called Cosota (Ocnița, near Onele Mari). Three fortified hills, named by the archaeologists Fortress 1, 2 and 3, appear in the shape of a horseshoe, surrounding a little depression – Fundătura [“Foundation”] Cosotei, opening up towards Ocniţa and the old salt mines. It is supposed that in the Fundătura Cosotei there was the civil part of the settlement and on the hills were the structures with political, sacral, and military purposes. (From Salt, Ancient Coins, and the Olt Valley by Silviu Purece. Studia Universitatis Cibiniensis. Series Historica, vol. XIII Supplement / 2016, p. 109-119)​

Question: is the current place name “Cosota” derived from the word Koson that we see on the coins? I think the answer is yes.

As far as I can tell, the current prevailing trend is to suppose that there’s a lot more Thraco-Dacian in Romanian than was previously thought (see e.g. Sorin Paliga in Opera Slavica). One advocate of this who has probably taken it too far is Mihai Vinereanu (now retired from CUNY), whose etymological dictionary finds nearly 60%(!) of the Romanian lexicon to be derived from a Thraco-Dacian substrate language. His explanation for why linguists have mistakenly assumed most of Romanian comes from Latin is that both Latin and Romanian share an Italic-Celtic-Thracian root: many words thought to be derived from Latin are in fact derived from that common root language. For criticism of the extremes to which he takes this view, see the Sorin Paliga piece cited above, as well as this paper.

Even if Vinereanu is a bit over-enthusiastic, old place names are particularly likely to have a Thraco-Dacian origin, especially if they’re not known to have another explanation; this is a pretty mainstream view. I haven’t been able to find any comments about the name “Cosota” specifically. But Vinereanu’s dictionary has some pretty interesting entries that might be relevant.

Here’s one:

Romanian caună ‘mine, salt mine’ (reg.) was considered to come from Latin *cavina < cavus ‘hollow’ (Puşcariu, 324; DAR). The Latin form is not attested, and there are no similar forms in any of the Romance languages. On the other hand, in Romanian, there is a multitude of forms derived from the same root as caună: cavă ‘depression’, căuc (variant căuş) ‘ladle, dipper, scoop’, caval ‘(little) ditch’, gaură (dial. gavră) ‘hole, opening, gap, cavity, crack’, găunos ‘hollow’.​

I’d particularly like to note “căuş”, meaning a ladle or scoop, which is very close in sound to "cos-", and also very descriptive of the human occupied depression surrounded by the horseshoe of Cosota Hill, even to the point of facing in exactly the right direction to "scoop" salt from the mines. It's pretty neat that the word for “salt mine” is likely related. (Let me remind you that the ancient Dacian remains discovered in Cosota/Buridava have turned out to be those of a large and important city, financed by salt mining.) The word “cosu” (sanctuary) could also be relevant here.

All in all I find it very plausible that "Cos-" (or “Kos-“) is the native Dacian word referring to the large salt-mine based city surrounded by the triple-peaked Cosota Hill, topped by a fortress (Buridava) and other buildings, both sacred and political. In Greek, the suffix “-on” means “of the” applied to a place name, commonly seen on coins all over the Greek world, so we have “KOΣON” meaning “of the city of Kos-.” The actual name of the city could have been Cos, Cosa, Cosu, Coso, Cosot, or even Cosota… there are a number of possibilities.

Again, the BYP monogram (remember the Latin BUR inscriptions found in the ruins also) could refer to Burebista, Buridava, or the Dacian tribe of the Burs/Buri who were originally based in Buridava/Cosota. Before the Republican and imitative Republican coinage circulated in this area, the main coinage of the Buri was the Aninoasa-Dobreşti tetradrachms, more commonly known as Kinnlos type, as pictured below. The Purece paper cited earlier ("Salt, Ancient Coins, and the Olt Valley”) argues that the expansion of the Buri, mostly under Burebista, saw these Macedonian imitations replaced with Roman style coinage, like Curtisimo’s stater.


Example of a "Kinnlos" or "Aninoasa-Dobreşti" tetradrachm (not my coin), used by the Buri in the 2nd c. BCE

I’ll add that I doubt the competing “Cotiso” or “Kotys” interpretations of “KOΣON” because on all existing Thracian coinage for a king called Cotis or Kotys, the T is unequivocally included, therefore representing a key phoneme in the native Thraco-Dacian language. It would be very strange for these staters and drachms to be the only exception to that rule, especially when there is another perfectly good explanation, a place name, which also makes better grammatical sense of the “-on” suffix.

 

That is absolutely excellent stuff @Severus Alexander . I have also been doing some further reading and have found some interesting stuff that I’ll need a bit more time to lay out my thoughts on. I’ll be adding some additional references and comments to the OP soon. I’ll have more to add shortly but I wanted to just say in the meantime I think the additional comments have been awesome and I appreciate all of the thought, research references and comments from all of you. I have been enjoying this discussion immensely. Thank you

 

On the word KOSON the author Wolfgang Fischer-Bossert seems to have no doubt that it is a personal name. Referencing others authors, Fischer-Bossert writes that this personal name is attested outside Greece in Tanais and Pantikapaion, but also in Greece as early as the 4th century BC (p. 94). The author argues that the name is in the nominative case, which he says is in keeping with Roman and Greek traditions.

Since he discusses not the gold staters, but the drachms, he considers the full legend "KOSON DROUEIS", which he eventually resolves as something like king/high priest/leader KOSON.

I find the idea, proposed by @Severus Alexander above, that KOSON is a toponym in the dative case very intriguing. Since the whole coin issue is highly imitative, I suppose to support this idea one would need to 1) show that toponyms in dative case appear on Greek and/or Roman coins and 2) connect this toponymic interpretation with the legend KOSON DROUEIS.

 

And equally interesting that not so long ago, the gold coins were among the rarest of all ancient gold and the silver entirely unknown. [edited]

 

Next (and I think last?) instalment.

It would actually be the genitive case (I think?), which would be standard for Greek coinage - so "of the Kosians" (or whatever). I'm no expert in Greek grammar, in fact I'm a complete ignoramus, but judging by other coins ending in -ΣΩΝ or just -ΩΝ preceded by a consonant (the omega is correct for the genitive, see the recent discussion here) possible city names with that genitive would be Kosa, Kosia, or Koseia. (Calling @Roman Collector for help here!) Of course that wouldn't actually be a Greek name, rather a Dacian name with a similar sound.

His grounds for assuming it's a personal name seem pretty weak. As I mentioned above, phonetically it's unlikely that it derives from Cotiso/Kotys and is otherwise not mentioned for any ruler. I was, however, able to confirm its (very rare) occurrence as a personal name in this lexicon. It occurs in Eretria, Echinos, and Akraiphia. More relevant for our purposes would be the occurrence in Pantikipaion, but it seems to be an incomplete portion of Κόστων. (Our coin type is also listed.)

Still, "KOΣON" as a personal name in the nominative is surely the strongest competitor to the proposal that it's a place name in the genitive. I just don't think it deserves its status as the default position!

@zumbly asked me in a pm if I had any thoughts about DROUEIS on the First Meris type drachms. I didn't. But I looked into it and one interesting possibility did surface.

There is a surprisingly similar word in modern Romanian: droáie, which means crowd, or a large number [of people or animals]. Its origin is generally listed as unknown, which raises the probability that comes from the Dacian substratum. The Romanian linguist Russu specifically suggests it is a Dacian word - see the list here, where they also point out there is an Albanian homolog, droe or droje. (Albanian likely shares a common substrate Dacian/Thracian origin with Romanian.) So the idea that it's a Dacian word isn't just coming from enthusiasts like Vinereanu, it seems to be the consensus position.

Now the ending "EIΣ" does strongly suggest that "ΔROYEIΣ" is in the dative case. Again I plead ignorance of Greek grammar, but whereas the genitive indicates a possessive, the dative indicates an indirect object, including what we'd express as prepositional objects in English, like "to ___" or "for ___" or "by ___". I suggest this is a Dacian word designating the people of the city (closely related to "crowd"), and "KOΣON ΔROYEIΣ" (gen. pl. then dat. pl.) means something like "for the people of Kosa" or "to the people of Kosa," or "by the people of Kosa," an attempt to hellenize the Dacian way of saying that the coins are an expression of the will, wealth, and residents of this important city. It also fits with Greek coin inscriptions generally, although I don't think the dative is commonly used: on Greek coins the genitive plural form of the city name is usually enough to express all this. Perhaps that didn't sit well with the Dacian mint officials who were producing these First Meris imitations, which may well have come earlier than the Curtisimo stater type (by which time they got used to the idea). Perhaps on the first drachms they felt "the people" needed to be made more explicit.

Obviously this is pretty speculative, but certainly no less so than Fischer-Bossert's druid idea... which is surely a real stretch! ("Well, see, there's this sorta-similar Galatian word, coming from Celtic, which, um, just might have influenced Dacian centuries beforehand..." ) What do you think?

Of course "ΔROYEIΣ" could also be something boring, like a magistrate's name. It's not attested as a personal name in Greek, but if it's a Dacian name then who knows? (Personally I think both "the people" idea and the boring magistrate possibility are more likely than the Fischer-Bossert story.)

I should note that this proposal for the meaning of ΔROYEIΣ is mostly independent of the proposal for the meaning of KOΣON, and both are independent of the proposal for the meaning of the monogram as Burebista/Buridava/the Buri. For the most part, they don't stand or fall together; maybe one is right and the others are wrong. However if "ΔROYEIΣ" means "by/for/to the people" then it seems "KOΣON" would probably have to be a place name.

I don't like posting without a coin, so here's a nearly completely unrelated 2nd century imitation that could possible be from Dacia.

 

I agree!

I see a journal article in the making .

Great work, Sev!

 

Here's what I heard back from Robert at Calgary Coin (quoted with his permission):

"Interesting. Not sure if they failed to read the evidence of how the dies were cut. Specifically the choppy background textures the Monogram type share with the denarii issued in 42 BC by Brutus and his allies produced immediately prior to their defeat, suggesting the same celators. These die textures are unusual, generally not seen elsewhere. To me a very important piece of evidence."

 

Absolutely fascinating thoughts SA. One question that comes to mind if these staters are related to a place or a city is what purpose would they have served in that context? As we discussed in our PM it is pretty certain that this entire series was struck with 3 obverse dies at either different times or different mints. The obverse dies do not share reverse dies (I’m still working on confirming this for myself). The fact that such a large number of these survive into today in mint state despite the 3 dies (=low mintage) suggests that these coins didn’t circulate and were buried soon after striking.

The only reason I can think of for a coin being marked as “from ____ (place)” is if the coins were meant to circulate commercially outside that place which doesn’t seem to be the case here.

I honestly love the Buridava / Kosa theory and I think the possibility raises the question of how we could then explain so many of these coins from a relatively small settlement surviving into today. Is there evidence of a sudden abandonment or sack of the city that might have led it to bury its treasury? Perhaps these were struck as tribute that was never paid?

In at least one hoard (Tarsa - 523 coins) all three obverse dies appear together in the following percentages.
Complex monogram = 48.7%
Simple monogram = 45.9%
No monogram = 5.4%
Perhaps this suggests separate mints under the same authority instead of striking at different times? Perhaps multiple officinae?

I once read an estimate on how many coins in various metals could be struck with a single obverse or reverse die. I can’t seem to find it now though. Thoughts? 50,000 per obverse die?

Promised OP update still coming!

I did read that and think it is interesting. I looked at some examples of the coin type for Cassius mentioned in the Calgary article.

The surfaces of my Koson example do have a unique texture from my experience. I tried to compare with the Cassius coins noted but I was not able to see a strong enough resemblance to consider the coin fabric definitely related. That could just be a product of the limits of comparison through photography. Someone who has studied both of these in hand would obviously be in a better position to comment. Anyone have a higher res photo of a mint state Cassius???

Here are two examples of the Cassius coin from CNG and an updated photo of my Koson for comparison.




Anyone can read the section referenced above linked in my OP or here:
https://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/articles/koson/koson.htm

.............................................​

I am currently doing some research on the dies and known hoard find locations. I am planning to update the OP with more references and some additional information I think will be relevant. I’ll also respond with a summary of the updates.

In the meantime if anyone knows where I can find the following documents please let me know. If not I’m sure I’ll be able track them down.

Munteanu Lucian 2002
Despre descoperile monetare de tip Koson
Arheologia Moldovei, Academiei Române, Bucuresti, Vol. 25, 2002, p. 253-270 {Coson}

Munteanu Lucian 2003
Despre emiterea monedelor de tip Koson
Arheologia Moldovei, Academiei Române, Bucuresti, Vol. 26, 2003, p. 241-264 {Coson}

 

Also I wanted to add that I read the metallurgical study again and the example that they show in the figure for the monogram Koson is of the complex type. That suggests that the simple and complex monogram coins are metallurgically related and it is only the no monogram coins that are the outlier.

So what you ask? That means that the simple and complex monogram Kosons can’t be separated by “crude” and “fine” style and assumed to be from different sources. Coupled with the fact that they were found together in roughly equal proportions in the Tarsa hoard (see above) seems to indicate they are related but were struck at different mints or officinae.

To keep it coin legal here is a commemorative of Trajan crossing the Danube into Dacia.

 

Hourmouziadis Jean. ΚΟΣΩΝ Gold Staters and Silver Drachmae - A Die Study.
In: Revue numismatique, 6e série - Tome 166, année 2010
https://www.persee.fr/doc/numi_0484-8942_2010_num_6_166_2938

Despre descoperirile monetare de tip Koson
https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/amold/article/download/31897/25604

 

As does Interpol. Caveat emptor.

 

Cool! I had so much fun reading this that I went down an internet wormhole haha! I like the Brutus Consul translation theory, linked. You've probably read the following versions, but I didn't see, so I thought I'd post it for posterity.
https://www.persee.fr/doc/numi_0484-8942_2010_num_6_166_2939

https://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/articles/koson/koson.htm