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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 3257872, member: 93416&quot;]Yes that looks right to me - the pics look like stray losses of coins that were working hard in the market place.&nbsp; Leaves open the question - how much of this sort of Athenian small change was ever put out in the first place?</p><p><br /></p><p>I should confess that whenever I hear TV history programs rattling on about Athens being the birthplace of democracy I kind of grit my teeth, and wonder - was it really?&nbsp; The fragments of text I have come across suggest to me that moves towards democracy, a market economy and scientific objectivity all went hand in hand and got a lead amongst the Ionian Greeks in the East, being blocked by Dorians such as Sparta in the West. Thus Athens was more the place where the two factions battled it out.&nbsp; Certainly if you want to find a lot of coins that would be useful in day to day contexts - Miletos and the rest of the Turkish littoral surely looks a better bet?</p><p><br /></p><p>But maybe we just do not have all the evidence?&nbsp; I heard a fascinating but troubling paper a few years back by a young archaeologist.&nbsp; He was looking at Roman sites, comparing coin finds where the excavator put the spoil past a metal detector - with sites where they did not.&nbsp; As I best recall - his preliminary conclusion was that only 5% of the coins will be spotted without a metal detector!</p><p><br /></p><p>Gives pause for thought...........</p><p><br /></p><p>Rob T[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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