8/9/2019 Athenian tetradrachms recently discovered in the Athenian Agora / John H. Kroll

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John

H. Kroll*

Athenian

tetradrachms

recently

discovered

in the Athenian Agora

(PI. Ill)

Summary. — Preliminary

report

on

a ca. 400-piece hoard of

4th-century pi-style

tetradrachms excavated in

2005 from beneath

the floor of

a public

office in the Athenian

Agora,

together

with

publication of

two other

notable

Athenian

tetradrachms

from the

recent

excavations.

One

of

these tetradrachms

belongs to the earliest 4th-century

coinage

to depict

Athena with a

profile eye.

It is proposed that this early profile-eye coinage began probably in the

380s or 370s

and

was replaced by the mechanical and hastily struck pi-style silver in the later

350s.

Résumé.

— Un trésor d'environ 400 tétradrachmes

attiques

du IVe s. (style

pi)

trouvé

en

2005 lors de la fouille d'un bâtiment

public

de l'Agora athénienne et deux remarquables

tétradrachmes

exhumés

aussi lors

de fouilles récentes à l'Agora font l'objet

du présent article.

Un

de ces tétradrachmes

se

rattache au

monnayage

du début du IVe s., avec une Athénadont

l'œil

est figuré de profil. Le premier

monnayage

avec

l'œil

de

profil date

probablement des

années

380-370 et

a

été remplacé

par l'argent

de style pi frappé de manière négligée et

mécanique

dans

les

années

350.

Since

the publication of

The

Athenian Agora,

XXVI: The

Greek Coins,

a

little more

than

a decade ago, by far the most significant numismatic finds

in

the

continuing

Agora excavations have been three involving

Old

Style Athenian

tetradrachms. What

better

occasion

for

announcing them than

in

this volume

honoring Hélène

Nicolet-Pierre, who

has

devoted so

much

of her scholarship

to

the study

of

Athenian

silver coinage and has

enriched its

understanding

immeasurably.

The

most

spectacular

of

these

Agora discoveries

is

the

most recent:

a

major

hoard of tetradrachms of the

second

half of the 4th century

B.C.

that was

recovered in July, 2005,

from

beneath the dirt floor of a building just south of

the Tholos in the

SE corner

of the Agora

square.

Located in the area of the

Athenian offices known as the Archeia, the

structure

is the one tentatively

identified on plans of the Agora as the Strategeion, the headquarters of Athens'

ten

generals. Apart

from 46 coins lying loose

at

the top

of

the hoard, the

main

* 104A

Woodstock Rd., Oxford,

OX2

7NE,

UK

On

the

Strategeion, Wycherlhy 1957, pp. 127 and

174; Thompson Wycherley

1972,

pp.

73-74.

RN2006,p. 57-63

8/9/2019 Athenian tetradrachms recently discovered in the Athenian Agora / John H. Kroll

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58

John H.

Kroll

body of

the deposit was

recovered

in

a

great

concreted mass,

having been

buried, probably

in a sack, in

a

concave pit below the floor.

As

the Agora

conservators

at the

time

of

this

writing

had only

begun

the

glacial

task

of

separating the coins

from

the corroded mass,

I

am here able to give

only

a few

preliminary observations.

To udge from

its

total weight (6.280 g), the hoard contains about

400-420

tetradrachms. So far as can be

seen

from the loose coins

and

the coins exposed

on the

outer

surface of the mass, the tetradrachms are exclusively of the

common

pi-style

variety,

a

coinage that is characterized by the π-shaped tendril

ornament

on Athena's

helmet,

and by

owls with

heavily

fringed

and frenetic-

looking

heads. Two partially cleaned specimens

from

the hoard

are illustrated

in PI. Ill,

1-2.

One of the most massively minted coinages in

Athenian

numismatic history,

the

hastily struck

pi-style silver

is

well

represented

in

other

sizable

hoards,

such

as Delos 1910 (IGCH 110: 50 tetradrachms), Piraeus 1938 (CH 3, 27:

100

tetradrachms),

and

Thorikos

1969

(IGCH 134: 282

tetradrachms,

with a pi-

style gold

stater

of the early

3rd

century

and

4 regal Macedonian coins). From

the Thorikos hoard

and

supporting numismatic

and historical

considerations,

the coinage is known to have come to an end

in

294.

2

Copied in

pseudo-

Athenian tetradrachms minted

in

Egypt beginning in the late

340s,

3

there

are

good

reasons

to

think that

the coinage commenced near the middle of the 4th

century. 4

Its

huge

scale, monotonous,

mechanical die-engraving,

and

careless,

slapdash minting reflect the tremendous success of the program associated

with

the

statesman

Euboulos

to

restore

the

Laurion

silver mining

industry

to

5th-century levels of productivity. Writing in 355, Xenophon complained

(Poroi 4.28) that

at that time

the industry had been operating far below its

potential. A

decade

later,

however, the

situation

had been

totally reversed:

inscriptions

pertaining

to the

leasing of

mines indicate that

by

the

mid

340s

silver exploration and

extraction had risen to

peak

levels.

Full

study

of

the new

Agora hoard should clarify

its

chronological position in the

long, half-century

mintage of this vast, internationally circulating coinage. Irini

Marathanki,

the

current numismatist at the Agora, is undertaking the die-study

and

publication.

The two other tetradrachm discoveries since the early 1990s are of

single

coins,

both

found,

outside of

significant

archaeological

contexts,

in

the

on-

2 Nicolet-Pierre / Kroll 1990,

pp.

2-3. Kroll 1993, p.

10.

3 Nicolet-Pierre

1979. van Alfen 2002A,

pp. 24-31,

pi.

120-121,

125-131.

4 Kroll 1993,

p.

8.

Publication of the

incomplete and

only

partially

legible

nomothetic law

of

354/3

(1975 Agora

inscription I

7495)

by

M. Richardson

and J. Camp will

do

much to advance

knowledge of the reforms

pertaining to

the Athenian

silver

industry

at

this time. The

preliminary

text

that

Richardson presented

at

the 1997

meeting

of the American

Philological

Association in

Chicago refers

inter

alia to

the exchanging of

silver

coins in the Agora, the

receiving

back of

(recoined?) silver from the mint, unminted silver, furnaces, and the refining

of

silver.

5

Aperghis 1997-98,

pp.

17-19.

RN

2006,

p. 57-63

8/9/2019 Athenian tetradrachms recently discovered in the Athenian Agora / John H. Kroll

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Athenian tetradrachms recently

discovered

in the Athenian Agora 59

going excavations

to

the north

of

the

Agora

square proper. 6

One

is

a tetradrachm

from Athens'

earliest owl

coinage

(PI.

Ill,

3). 7

Although

heavily worn and damaged by surface corrosion, the reverse shows

an owl with a plump, compact body that extends out diagonally from the

head

in

a

stance