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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Gao, post: 2971482, member: 19409&quot;]<a href="http://savingantiquities.org/why-coins-matter-trafficking-in-undocumented-and-illegally-exported-ancient-coins-in-the-north-american-marketplace/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://savingantiquities.org/why-coins-matter-trafficking-in-undocumented-and-illegally-exported-ancient-coins-in-the-north-american-marketplace/" rel="nofollow">Here&#039;s</a> a good article by an ancient coin collector about the kinds of issues I brought up.&nbsp; He has a section regarding this that I&#039;m just going to paste here:</p><p><br /></p><p>It is often asserted that ‘collectible’ coins sold on the market come from hoards found by metal detectorists in the middle of fields away from any sort of proper historical or archaeological site (for example, Tompa 1998: 73-75; Tompa and Brose 2005: 205, 207-210), sometimes with the reasoning that most coins were buried by Roman soldiers before battles. One great flaw in this reasoning, however, is that many other types of ancient coins are sold on the market in addition to Roman coins! Additionally, it is clear that coin hoards are not only found in the middle of fields devoid of associated archaeological remains, but can comprise a large percentage of coin finds from archaeological sites. At the Magdalensberg, for example, approximately 38% of coins were found in hoards at the site (FMRÖ 2.1; and forthcoming unpublished research by S. Krmnicek). In western Germany, one can also see how common hoards are in places such as Cologne (Köln), Trier, and Mainz, where hoards can make up significant percentages of coin finds in ancient settlements (refer to the appropriate volumes of FMRD).</p><p><br /></p><p>The argument also defies logic since someone looking for coins to sell for profit (rather than a weekend hobbyist) would naturally begin looking in a known area of habitation rather than empty fields; furthermore, it is well documented that many sites have been spoiled by metal detectorists looking for ancient coins and other metal objects. For example, after the publication of some Iron Age coin finds from Roseldorf, Austria, (Dembski 1991), metal detectorists flocked to the site and robbed it of coins, causing significant damage in the quest for their own personal profit and greed (Dembski 1994; 1995). When Frankfurt University began excavating at Groß-Gerau, a site near Frankfurt, Germany, they were perplexed by the lack of coin finds until they determined the site had already been robbed of coins by a local metal detectorist (per discussions with individuals at Frankfurt University).</p><p><br /></p><p>At Burghöfe, Germany, two metal detectorists leisurely despoiled the site of approximately 5,000 coins and 3,000 other metal objects over the course of ten years (Keller 1992; von Kaenel 1994: 7; 1995: 218). Carnuntum, in modern Austria, is also frequented by looters and causes significant problems with the study of the coin finds (Alram and Schmidt-Dick 2007: 64). It is often asserted that ‘collectible’ coins only come from hoards, where they are better preserved (Tompa 1998: 73-75; Tompa and Brose 2005: 205, 207-210). Single finds of excavated coins can be just as well-preserved or ‘collectible’ as hoard coins, contrary to the arguments of the lobby. For example, at Yotvata, Israel —a Late Roman site with a particularly corrosive soil—a large number of the single finds are rather well preserved (see for example figure 5, publication of the coin finds from this site is forthcoming). In short, a collector or dealer who does not demand viable documentation has no notion regarding the origin or circumstances in which that coin was found. Most coins on the market are undoubtedly single finds from archaeological sites or from hoards ripped from their original contexts and associations.</p><p><br /></p><p>Those who argue that proper archaeological sites do not produce large numbers of coins are simply unfamiliar with the scholarly literature. Many large hoards and thousands of single finds can be found at sites of varying sizes. Familiarization with the FMRD volumes and similar publications will show that coin finds frequently are found in great numbers at civilian and military sites alike, as the numbers from Burghöfe illustrate. The idea that large hoards, devoid of any archaeological context associated with settlement-remains, satisfy collector and dealer demand is a fallacy; in fact, the selling practices of many coin dealers betray this notion. For example, when looking at bulk lots of coins on eBay and VCoins, one can read in the descriptions various disclaimers that there may be a mixture of Greek, Roman, Islamic, Medieval, or even modern coins in the lots; clearly, these are not the contents of an ancient hoard, but rather the accumulation of coins robbed from multiple archaeological sites with different periods and ranges of occupation.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m not sure what information you think is particularly important about coins, but I want to know when they were used, where, how, and by whom as much as I can, and that seems to be common.&nbsp; We saw above that while a decent number come from &quot;empty field&quot; (though I wonder how many of those are just previously unknown and unexcavated archaeological sites that haven&#039;t been explored yet), quite a few come from places of habitation.&nbsp; Like what if this came from the ruins of a temple?&nbsp; An old Christian church?&nbsp; A military camp?&nbsp; A brothel?&nbsp; This hoard was put together someone who was very particular about the silver content of their coins, but was it just one guy being particular, or was there a social or cultural reason for it?&nbsp; Like if it was in a military camp, it could be evidence that local authorities were keeping the better coins for the soldiers.&nbsp; Maybe it was at a church, and it was a sign that the parishioners were tithing their best coins, and maybe the end of the hoard could be used as a piece of evidence that there was Christian persecution activity that was otherwise unknown in whatever settlement this was.&nbsp; There&#039;s a lot this might have told us about the local culture, economy, and how these coins worked with it.</p><p><br /></p><p>But let&#039;s assume that this hoard was in fact in some empty field that otherwise had no archaeological information lost beyond a latitude and longitude.&nbsp; The write up states that whoever made this hoard probably lived near the mint site, and they use that to determine the location.&nbsp; But here&#039;s the thing: we don&#039;t really know for certain that this was at Antioch.&nbsp; Like that&#039;s the likely site given what we know, but to my understanding, that&#039;s it.&nbsp; If this was far from Antioch?&nbsp; That would throw a wrench in that hypothesis.&nbsp; Was it right nearby?&nbsp; Then we have further confirmation of what we already believed.&nbsp; Either way, it&#039;s told us something significant both about these coins and the economic patterns of this part of the Roman Empire at this time.&nbsp; And if it was found in some really weird location that we can rule out as a mint site?&nbsp; Then that&#039;s told us something interesting about migration patterns or how these coins circulated.</p><p><br /></p><p>And context isn&#039;t just the location a coin was found in.&nbsp; I think it&#039;s important to look into the Frome Hoard.&nbsp; This was a 350 pound vessel with over 50,000 coins that dated from the latter half of the third century.&nbsp; The archaeologists who found it had to take the coins out in layers, since the vessel was too fragile, but that led them to an interesting discovery.&nbsp; Normally, if someone gradually added coins to a vessel like this over years, you&#039;d expect the coins to generally get newer as they got towards the top.&nbsp; But here, while there were horizontal layers where coins were around the same age, these layers were all out of order.&nbsp; Like you&#039;d have a layer of newer coins covered by a layer of older coins.&nbsp; So that combined with the fact that the vessel was far too heavy to easily retrieve for whoever buried it meant this wasn&#039;t just someone hiding some wealth they intended to recover later.&nbsp; The best hypothesis I&#039;ve seen is that this was intended as a sacrifice by a community.&nbsp; They got together, put this pot in the ground, then one by one poured in their family&#039;s savings, and since they had each built that up over different periods of time, that resulted in the weird layering.</p><p><br /></p><p>So what would we know if this hoard had the same history as the Antioch Hoard of Gallienus?&nbsp; Well half the coins would be gone, and those would almost certainly include those beautiful Carausius denarii, but I also wonder if it would have included most if not all of his coins.&nbsp; If enough were missing, we might not even know that this was an English hoard.&nbsp; We certainly wouldn&#039;t know that it was all in one giant, nearly impossible to recover vessel, and we would probably have no idea where any coin in the hoard was laid relative to any other.&nbsp; We&#039;d lose what made the hoard strange and interesting, what it told us about a community, and what it told us about how these coins were used.&nbsp; How much like that did we lose with the Antioch Hoard of Gallienus?&nbsp; How much do we lose with all the hoards that are just split up to give us our cheap Constantines?</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m going to stop there for now, since that took longer to write up than I intended, and I have things I need to get done today.&nbsp; I will say that some of you have given me some interesting things to think about, though.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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