Professional paper
A Greek coin found in Zagreb
Zdenka Dukat
Boris Mašić
Abstract
During preventive archaeological work in Gri~ Park in Zagreb old town a rare Greek coin was found. The work was being carried out by the Zagreb City Museum on the initiative of the Zagreb
City Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments and Nature.
During the present year’s work, which was concentrated on defining the prehistoric level and built structures mentioned above, in probe III (SJ 013) a rather worn rare bronze coin was discovered:
a late 3 BC Sicilian coin struck by the Mamertines. Military units formed from the Campanian or Oscian mercenaries took the name of the Roman god Mars and advanced to take the Bay of Messina.
They extended their domination over most of north east Sicily. The coin has a hole in it through which an iron wire was threaded to serve as a chain-link. The coin was much more corroded in this place, so that until it was cleaned it was impossible to see that there was a hole. The main role of money, when it replaced natural bartering of goods, was for trading. But in time, in addition to this basic function it came to have additional functions. One of these was a result of its intrinsic value which led it to be often used for personal ornament. In this way it united three basic factors: aesthetic, value and symbol. This happened in Antiquity, in the Middle Ages and is still true today. Items were worn as pendants, or as amulets for religious reasons to guard against evil. Since most were hung they had to be pierced with one or more holes, or sometimes a link added to them or put in a setting. In this way they lost their numismatic value but gained another personal one. But even so we cannot ignore their primary function as money. We can suppose that the coin found on Gri~ was used as a pendant or amulet. To determine the date the hole was pierced, in Antiquity or the Middle Ages, we must wait for more information from the excavations in the Gri~ region which, since it has not in recent years been devastated by construction work, offers a promising basis for unhindered research into archaeological levels in the centre of our capital city.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
18706
URI
Publication date:
8.12.2005.
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