Archaeologists discover coin hoard in Central Hungary

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by DonnaML, Jan 12, 2021.

  1. DonnaML

    DonnaML Well-Known Member

    See https://www.heritagedaily.com/2021/...eval-treasure-hoard-in-central-hungary/136764

    According to the article, which includes a photo showing several piles of green coins -- and calls the discovery a "treasure hoard," of course -- there are "nearly 7,000 silver coins, and 4 gold coins," both late medieval and Roman. The earliest coin is from Lucius Verus, and the medieval coins seem all to have been issued prior to 1526, the year of the defeat at the Battle of Mohacs. If, as the article suggests, the coins were buried in response to the advancing Ottomans, does that indicate that Roman coins may have been circulating in late medieval Hungary?
     
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  3. DiomedesofArgos

    DiomedesofArgos Well-Known Member

    Do silver coins of this era have a high copper content?
     
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  4. +VGO.DVCKS

    +VGO.DVCKS Well-Known Member

    @DonnaML, while that's the first available intelligent guess (as early as this, it's hard to fathom coin collectors on the eastern fringe of the Western world), there might be a caveat or two. Granted that at this point, the best you're likely to get from ...well, me is frankly reducible to speculation, informed or not.
    (Meanwhile, Massive thanks for the link. The website is Bookmarked, with as many terms as I could think of.)
    I'm wondering if the Roman examples could represent what was in circulation more discretely prior, not only to the deposit date, but more generally to the massive issues of denars by the kings of Hungary (c. 15th and 16th centuries), which seem to predominate.
    If you go down this speculative rabbit-hole, it's easy to imagine the hoard having consisted of several generations' (and, who knows, a couple centuries') worth of the burier's total, net accumulation. --Thank you, less as a collection than as, well, an accumulation of all available monetary capital.
    To mix cliche, that was my two cents, for what they're worth. ...As a medievals guy, some of my collecting is predicated on coins having circulated over intervals more and less vaguely comparable to what you see that much more consistently in any number of Ancient contexts.
     
  5. fomovore

    fomovore Active Member

    I'm really surprised the owner didn't just melt down the Roman coins.
     
  6. fomovore

    fomovore Active Member

    Not until about 250 CE IIRC.
     
  7. +VGO.DVCKS

    +VGO.DVCKS Well-Known Member

    Well, except, to paraphrase what a Rasta might say, 'Highly I Unlikely I.' Whether or not they were in active circulation, the coins would have had greater value as recognizable coins than as bullion. As the immediate historical context of the hoard serves to demonstrate, Hungary was literally on the frontier of the Western world. In that sort of context, the rules change.
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2021
  8. DonnaML

    DonnaML Well-Known Member

    Thanks for the well-informed speculation! As for the website, I don't follow its facebook page, but articles from it show up regularly on my facebook feed, and I often click on them when they're about archaeology, paleontology (dinosaurs and sabre-toothed tigers, etc. are always a nice distraction), "heritage" (their annoying word for history!), and related fields. Yes, the articles are sometimes written with a "popularizing" tone, but that's not a handicap for me. I find them enjoyable.
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2021
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  9. fomovore

    fomovore Active Member

    A very good point. I remember reading about Roman bronzes used in rural England up to the 16th(?) century, but silver? I'm not so sure. I wonder how they were viewed given their "heathen" imagery and more than a thousand years separating them from the owner.
    Also "shaving" silver medieval coins was very widespread (I think?) then so bullion was obviously desired.
     
  10. DonnaML

    DonnaML Well-Known Member

    What I've read about rural England is not that such small coins were literally used "up to" that time, but that they were often found and dug up by farmers, etc., and then entered circulation.
     
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  11. fomovore

    fomovore Active Member

    @+VGO.DVCKS
    If I'm not mistaken collecting ancient coins began as a hobby some time in the mid Renaissance - 14/15th century. I wonder if we have here a numismatic collection mixed in with some life savings.

    PS. Though seven thousand silver coins... That's quite a "collection".
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2021
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  12. +VGO.DVCKS

    +VGO.DVCKS Well-Known Member

    Thanks for your valued context!
    I remain, to this day, terrified of (...from all you know, does this verge on oxymoron?) "Social [...dramatic pause] Media," and Facebook makes its merry way, sailing over my head.
    ...Unless quoted or accessed by responsible online news media. With that as vague context, thank you for your valued distinction regarding the "popular" vs. academic treatment. ...But it's sounding as if your emphasis is on the presentation, rather than the contributors.
     
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  13. +VGO.DVCKS

    +VGO.DVCKS Well-Known Member

    ...Well, except, I got to that, which had to be part of where @DonnaML was coming from, a little more implicitly.
    It really takes remembering where this was. Hungary was at the opposite side of these people's world from Italy, where coin collecting in any contemporaneous European context originated.
     
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  14. DonnaML

    DonnaML Well-Known Member

    I edited what I wrote a bit so it doesn't sound quite so snobbish. A popularizing tone -- which only occurs sometimes -- isn't really a handicap for me. Without it, and with all the technical details left in, I would probably enjoy many of the articles a lot less, and certainly would understand them a lot less in various fields. The only disadvantage is that sometimes the articles are shorter than I would like; I would also appreciate links to the studies/reports they're often about.
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2021
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  15. +VGO.DVCKS

    +VGO.DVCKS Well-Known Member

    Thanks, @DonnaML. That's a seriously valid distinction. Except, even when the contributors all have impressive credentials, I still have to miss footnotes and bibliographies. Less a matter of cultural elitism (...in emphatic contrast to the economic kind --There's where the phrase might have a measure of validity) than of the mere acknowledgment of the fragility of truth, regardless of the discipline(s) involved.
     
  16. DonnaML

    DonnaML Well-Known Member

    Before I saw this, I edited my post again to add the following sentence: "The only disadvantage is that sometimes the articles are shorter than I would like; I would also appreciate links to the studies/reports they're often about."
     
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  17. +VGO.DVCKS

    +VGO.DVCKS Well-Known Member

    Roger that! :<} Thanks, Donna. Doesn't surprise me for a minute that you would have been thinking that fast.
     
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  18. +VGO.DVCKS

    +VGO.DVCKS Well-Known Member

    ...Or, to make your point only more explicit, re-entered circulation.
    For 16th century Europe, Hungary and northern, rural England would have both been at the top of the list of candidates for this sort of thing happening.
    ...The fun part about speculation on this level is that the range of possible scenarios is effectively endless.
     
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  19. Pellinore

    Pellinore Well-Known Member

    Here's another hoard, from Slovakia, buried at the same time. Silver and a little gold - but no Roman coins alas.

    According to this list, the Emperor Augustus was a coin collector, Suetonius mentions some details. And here someone speculatively described the discovery of a numismatist's collection dating from about 200 AD.

    I'm sure, had I been living in, say, Tarsus in the third century, I surely had been a natural born coin collector hoarding coins and tessera from Tarsus and all the neigboring Roman Provincial towns, the large and the small, trying to make a series of all the emperors and empresses, all the festivals and games, and all the gods and goddesses and personifications.
     
  20. Egry

    Egry Well-Known Member

    I never knew Johnny Cash collected Raman and Greek coins. Awesome!
     
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  21. scottishmoney

    scottishmoney Buh bye

    I read somewhere that during a survey in rural southern France during the early 19th century the researchers found a Roman coin in circulation there. That doesn't imply that the coin circulated continuously but that at some point it was unearthed and re-entered circulation at a much later date.
     
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