Original scientific paper

Symbolism on Croatian Banovac Coins

Aleksandar Benažić ; Prigorje Museum. Sesvete, CRO

Abstract

which on one side had the representation of a running marten and on the other two facing crowned heads flanking a double (patriarchal) cross. The beginning of its minting is attributed to King Bela IV(III). In literature these coins are called „Slavonian banovac” although they were not minted only by bans, and the early ones have the inscription MONETA B REGIS P SCLAVONIA (coins of Bela the King for Slavonia). They were in fact minted by whoever governed Slavonia at the time of their coinage – king, herceg (crown prince), queen, ban. In contemporary documents these coins are called the banal denar so that was why they were given the name banovac. Minting the banovac stopped during the second half of the fourteenth century (Renđeo, 1939; Truhelka, 1897; Dolenec, 1993; Mimica, 1995). In this period more than 400 types and subtypes of the banovac were minted (Mirnik, 1992 : 185). In Numizmatičke vijesti the author has already written a series of articles about the symbolism of the marten, which appears on the obverse of these coins (Benažić: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007), and is now dealing with its reverse which has two crowned heads flaking a double patriarchal cross on a stand. He attempts to show that the two images, the obverse and the reverse, are connected and that they make one common symbolical representation.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

195789

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/195789

Publication date:

17.11.2017.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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