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

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

1/9

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


2/9

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


3/9

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

that

in

the archaic period

occurs

only

in

the owls

of Seltman

s Group

H. 8 Apart

from

belonging to this most

historic

and

relatively rare early

Athenian

mintage,

the coin has the further distinction

of being

only the second

pre-480 tetradrachm to have shown up in the excavations. 9

Far more noteworthy is the other new

tetradrachm (PI.

Ill,

4),

(l since

it

is the

first

tetradrachm

of

its type known

to have

been

found in

Attica. Prior

to

its

discovery,

all tetradrachms of this type

with

known

proveniences came

from

hoards in Egypt or in Sicily. We

must thank

Hélène Nicolet herself for

publishing the two largest lots of these tetradrachms: a lot of 14 specimens

in

her

invaluable paper

on

the

Tell

El-Athrib

hoard

from

Egypt

and

the

still

more

important lot of 1 9

fresh

tetradrachms

from

the Lentini, Sicily, hoard that she

published in collaboration

with

Carmen Arnold-Biucchi. 12 This

second lot

is so

representative

of

the

many

and

varied obverse dies of

the

coinage that

it

will be

convenient to

refer

to the coinage

collectively

as the «

Lentini-group

» coinage.

I

illustrate eight specimens

from

the

Lentini hoard

in

PI. Ill, 5-12.

In these

hoard

publications, Mme Nicolet

argued that

the

tetradrachms in

question were pseudo-Athenian imitations that

while

copying pi-style

tetradrachms

happened to get some details wrong. Obverse eyes are

often

too

large

and

are heavily lined. On

reverses

the alpha of the

legend,

instead of

beginning

at the

neck of

the

owl,

opposite

the

beak,

as

on

pi-style

coins,

touches the side of the head. And the

flans

are wider

and

less thick than the

chunky

flans of the pi-style coins. She proposed that the pieces were probably

6 In excavation section BE,

for

the location

of which

see

Kroll

1993, pi. 35. Although the

mineralized, dark grey surfaces

of

both

tetradrachms

have the appearance of

lead,

the coins'

weights and

the results

of

several

elemental

tests confirm

that

their

metal

is silver.

7 Inv. Ν

12199

(BE- 1555). 17.24 g, diameter: 24 mm, die axis: 3:00. Recovered 22 June 2000

while cleaning, i.e.,

outside

of

a

proper archaeological

context.

8

Seltman

1924,

pp.

189-192,

pi.

13-14.

Kraay

1976, pp.

60-61,

pi. 10,

nos.

175-178.

9 The other is Kroll 1993, no. 7 (Seltman Group L).

10 Inv. Ν 12175 (BE- 1531). 17.82 g, diameter: 25 mm, die axis: 9:00.

Recovered

28

July

1997, while dismantling

a wall.

Nicolet-Pierre

2001,

pp.

185-6 and pi.

5. Other Egyptian

hoards with

tetradrachms of

this type:

Tell

el-Maskhouta

(ICGH

1649), see

Naster 1948,

pi.

1.12; and

«

Nahman's

hoard »,

van

Alfen 2002B,

pp. 62-63,

pi. 13,

nos. 6 and

8

(the

latter not being

pi-style

owing

to

the

position of

the

reverse alpha),

and

possibly

2

and 5, which

may be imitations (note the

crude,

linear lips

of

the

Athenas). Nicolet-Pierre

1998-1999, pi. 3.7 (SNG

Paris-Delepierre,

no. 1472)

also comes from Egypt.

12

Nicolet-Pierre /

Arnold-Biucchi 2000, pp. 167-171, pis. 18-19.

Other Sicilian

hoards

with such coins

are Contessa

{IGCH 2119), see Nicolet-Pierre

1998-99,

pi.

3.6;

and Manfria

(/GC// 2121). Cf. Nicolet-Pierre

1998-99,

pi. 3.6

(Collection Prudente,

Catania).

RN

2006,

p. 57-63


4/9

60

John H. Kroll

minted

in Egypt; those that made

their way

to Sicily may have been brought

there by itinerant mercenary soldiers.

l3

Needless to

say,

the

new

Agora tetradrachm complicates this interpretation,

as do some fractional coins of this style that were also recovered

from

soil of

Attica. In 1 963

Mando

Oikonomidou published

a

small lamp hoard from the

Athenian suburb of Agios Ioannis Rentis that contained 12 triobols and

diobols, at least some of

which

have

Athena heads

that

appear to

have

been

produced by

the

same

die-cutters as

were

responsible

for some of

the

Lentini-

group tetradrachms. 4 The eyes of most of the

fractions

are

relatively

large.

All

are heavily lined. And the eye of one of the triobols (PI. Ill, 13) is singularly

big and

bulbous, precisely like the eye on the Lentini tetradrachm, PI. Ill, 6.

The lamp hoard triobol

and

diobol, pi. Ill, 13 and 14, both have a distinctive

facial profile that slants down

through

the tip of the long nose

and

then cuts

back

sharply

in

a

line

allowed

by

a

deeply

receding

chin,

just as

on

the

Lentini

tetradrachm PI. Ill,

5.

Since this

kind

of profile is

otherwise

exceedingly rare,

and since bulging

profile

eyes

are

unparalleled anywhere

else

in

Athenian

coinage, the lamp hoard coins should,

I

believe, be identified as Lentini-group

fractions.

The

Attic proveniences

of

the fractions

and

the

Agora tetradrachm

support

the

deductions

of Colin Kraay, who was the

first scholar

to draw attention to

tetradrachms of the Lentini type, believing them to be genuinely Athenian. 5 He

assumed

that they were the first coins Athens struck after

a

hiatus

in

minting

following

the Peloponnesian War

and noted

that they seem to

provide

a

stylistic

bridge

between

the

traditional

owl

silver

of

the

5th

century

and

the

pi-style

silver of

the second

half of

the

4th century.

Salient features are inherited from

the 5th-century owls: flans have the same the same

widths

and

thicknesses;

facial features

are large and bold; eyes are

outlined;

and, on reverses, the

ethnics begin at the side of the owls' heads.

On

the

other hand,

the innovations

introduced on the Lentini-type tetradrachms

establish

precedents that

continued on in the pi coinage. Apart from the conspicuous

fully

profile eye

given to Athena, we should note the more naturally modeled lips

and

mouth

that are largely responsible

for lending

a

softer, maidenly

aspect to Athena's

face. The

helmet ornaments

on

the

Lentini-group

obverses approach

and

sometimes

actually

assume

the

schematic

pi-formation

of

the

later

coins.

Reverses introduce a newly

proportioned

owl

that is

stubbier, more

compact

and designed with a head that is larger and more

fringed

than the

heads

of

owls

on

Athenian

silver of the

5th

century.

Kraay thought that the coinage began in the late 390s or the 380s when the

13 Further, Nicolet-Pierre 1998-99, pp.

102-106.

14 Oikonomidou

1963.

A thirteenth coin in the

hoard

is

a

worn drachm of late

5th-century

type. The hoard is currently on

permanent

display in the Numismatic

Museum,

Athens.

15 Kraay 1968, p.

8,

pi. IV.5. Kraay 1976,

pp. 74-75, 356,

pi.

1,

no.

200. Whence

Kroll

1993, p. 8.

RN2006,p. 57-63


5/9

Athenian tetradrachms recently discovered in

the

AthenianAgora

6

1

Lentini and

other

Sicilian

hoards with the

coinage

were believed to date.

But

more

recently Carmen

Arnold-Biucchi has explained that the latest Syracusan

coins

in

these

hoards

also

allow

a

dating

in

the

370s

or

even

into

the

early

60s.16

The lamp

with

the fractional

silver

is not much more helpful since it belongs

to a class that dates to the first

half but

mainly to the second quarter of the

4th

century.

n

Given

the wide

range of

dating possibilities afforded

by this

evidence, it is impossible to

feel

confident about when coins of Lentini group

began.

While a date

within

a decade

after

the Peloponnesian War

cannot be

absolutely

ruled

out, a starting date in the

second

or third decade of the 4th

century

seems more probable.

18

But if

the

coinage

did not commence until two

or

more decades

after

the

Peloponnesian

War,

further questions arise. Did Athens not

mint

any

tetradrachms

at

all during

this protracted

period? Or, did the Athenians

resume

minting relatively soon after the war

but

continue to

employ

the

traditional

designs

of

the late

5th

century owls? In

that

case, the

shift

to the profile-eye

obverses

should probably be

understood

not as

a

gesture to

merely modernize

the coinage 19 but

rather

as alteration to give the coinage an easily recognizable

new

look so that good new

Athenian

silver could be readily distinguished from

the

many existing

forgeries in

circulation.

20

To udge from

finds

in

the Agora21

and from

the 375/4 Law of Nikophon, 22 forgeries were a problem, and one

way

of

safeguarding

against

them would

have

been

by

modifying, as governments

do today with

paper

money, some

detail

of the

existing

design.

The

next intentional

modification

of

the

4th-century

owls occurred

with

the

slight drop in the position of the

alpha

in the coins' ethnic. The adjustment

marks the

beginning of

the

pi-style silver

proper

and

is hard to explain except

as a

means for distinguishing

the new pi

silver from

the preceding

Lentini-

group coinage

and

any

existing

counterfeits

that might have been based on it.

If so,

one has to

wonder whether

the introduction of the pi-style silver might

not have been

accompanied

by a massive recoining of all Athenian

silver in

local circulation (see note 4 above).

I don't know

if any of

this will

convince Hélène Nicolet. But lest readers

be

concerned about the propriety of presenting a discussion that contests an

16

In

Nicolf.t-Pierre /Arnold-Biucchi

2000, pp. 165-166.

17 Howland 1958,

pp.

60-61,

nos.

234-235.

8 The coinage must

have been of

some duration, for

it

encompassed at least two phases

of

Athena heads: one

of dies

with

bold facial features of

the goddess

(PI. Ill, 4-9)

and a

second,

presumably later phase

of

Athena heads with smaller

noses and

eyes

(PI. Ill, 1-12). The

later

heads

are virtually

identical

to

the

finely

featured

Athenas of

the

pi-style coinage.

19 So Kraay 1968, p.

8,

and 1976, pp. 74-75.

20 So van

Alfln

2006 note 44.

21 Kroll 1993, pp.

4, 6,

7,

17.

22

Stroud

1974,

pp.

169-171.

RN

2006.

p. 57-63


6/9

62

John

H.

Kroll

interpretation of hers in a volume in her honor,

I

would

like to

conclude

on a

personal note. In the late 1980s, Mme

Nicolet

and

I

collaborated on

a

study of

the 3rd-century owl

silver

of Athens.23

It

was a highly agreeable

and mutually

profitable enterprise

but reached

an

uncomfortable

impasse when

near

the end

we

found ourselves

in disagreement, as now, about whether several

tetradrachms in

our survey

should be regarded

as pseudo-Athenian

imitations

or as

genuinely

Athenian. What

to do? One day

as our

paper

was

in

the final

stages,

a

letter arrived from Mme Nicolet suggesting that we should confess in

a

note that we were

unable

to

concur

and « ce sera

plus

amusant pour nos

lecteurs. »

I

have always

treasured

that letter

with its

genial sense of humor in

recommending to a

skeptical

colleague

that

if we

cannot agree,

then we must

at

least agree to disagree which others

will

only

find

entertaining And so

I

hope I have

not taken

undue advantage of

her

good-natured generosity in

accepting

once

again

her

invitation

to

express

a

differing

view.

24

Bibliography

Aperghis 1997-98 :

G. C. Aperghis A

reassessment

of

the

Laurion

mining

ease

records, BICS 42, pp.

1-20.

Howland 1958

:

R. H.

Howland, The Athenian

Agora,

IV:

Greek Lamps and

their Survivals Princeton, 1958.

Kraay 1968

: C.

M.

Kraay,

Coins

ofAncient

Athens,

Newcastle uponTyne,

1968

(Minerva

Numismatic

Handbooks,

2).

Kraay

1976

: C.

M.

Kraay, Archaic and Classical Greek Coins, Berkeley

-

Los

Angeles, 1976.

Kroll

1993

: J.

H. Kroll,

The Athenian

Agora,

XXVI: The

Greek Coins,

Princeton, 1993

Nicolet-Pierre

1979 : H.

Nicolet-Pierre,

Les monnaies des deux derniers

satrapes d'Egypte avant la

conquête

d'Alexandre,

in

O.

M0RKHOLM and

N.

Waggoner (eds.), Greek Numismatics and

Archaeology:

Essays in Honor of

Margaret Thompson, Wetteren, 1979, pp. 221-230.

Nicolet-Pierre 1998-99 : H. Nicolet-Pierre, Tétradrachmes pseudo

athéniens en Sicile

et

en Italie, Klearchos

40-41,

1998-99, pp. 93-1

12,

pis.

1-3.

Nicolet-Pierre 2001

: H.

Nicolet-Pierre,

Retour sur le trésor de Tel El-

Athrib

1903

(IGCH

1663)

conservé

à

Athènes,

ArchEph

2001

(2004),

pp.

173-

187.

Nicolet-Pierre / Arnold-Biucchi 2000 : H. Nicolet-Pierre

and

C. Arnold-

Biucchi,

Le trésor de Lentini

(Sicile) 1957 {IGCH

2117), in

S. M. Hurter

and

C. Arnold-Biucchi (eds.), Pour Denyse,

Divertissements numismatiques

Bern,

2000, pp. 165-171, pis.

18-19.

23 Nicolet-Pierre / Kroll

1990. Cf.

Kroll

1993,

pp.

1-12.

24 I

thank John Camp, Director

of

the Agora Excavations,

together

with

Irini

Marathaki,

Alice

Paterakis, Beth Orr,

and

Peter

van

Alfen

for

their assistance in the

preparation

of

these

notes.

RN2006,p. 57-63


7/9

Athenian

tetradrachms recently

discovered

in

the

AthenianAgora 63

Nicolet-Pierre

/ Kroll 1990

: H. Nicolet-Pierre and J . H. Kroll,

Athenian

tetradrachm coinage of the third century B.C., AJN2, p. 1-35.

Oikonomidou

1963

:

M. Karamessini-Oikonomidou,

Chronika,

Archaio-

logikon Deltion,

18,

1963,

p.

50, pi.

56.

Seltman 1924

: C. T. Seltman,

Athens, Its

History and Coinage before

the

Persian

Invasion Cambridge, 1924.

Stroud

1974

: R.S.

Stroud,

An

Athenian

law on silver

coinage,

Hesperia,

43, 1974, pp. 157-188.

Wycherley

1957

: R. E. Wycherley, The AthenianAgora, III: Literary and

Epigraphical

Testimonia, Princeton,

1957.

Thompson / Wycherley 1972 : H. A. Thompson and R. E. Wycherley, The

Athenian

Agora, XIV:

The

Agora of

Athens, Princeton, 1972.

van

Alfen

2002 A : P.

van Alfen,

Owls

from

the 1989 Syria

Hoard,

AJN2,

14, 2002, pp.

1-58.

van

Alfen 2002B

: P.

van Alfen, Two

unpublished hoards and other

owls

from Egypt, AJN2, 14, 2002, pp. 59-71.

van Alfen 2006 :

P.

van Alfen, Problems in ancient

imitative

and

counterfeit

coinage, in Z.

Archibald,

J. Davies, and

V

Gabrielsen (eds.),

Making, Moving,

and

Managing: the New World of

Ancient

Economies, 323-31

BC,

London, 2006,

pp. 322-354.

Plate III

1-2. Two tetradrachms

from

the 2005 Agora hoard.

3-4.

Agora

tetradrachms

Ν

12199 and

Ν 12175.

5-12. Eight

tetradrachms

from

the 1957

Lentini

hoard. Photos reproduced

from

Nicolet-Pierre / Arnold-Biucchi 2000, pis. 18

and

19, nos. 18

(ANS),

19,

17, 15,

4, 10, 6 (ANS), 1 (ANS).

13-14.

Triobol and diobol from the 1962

Ag.

Ioannis Rentis lamp hoard.

Photos

reproduced

and enlarged (x2) from Oikonomiou 1963, pi.

56.5

and 6.

RN2006,p.

57-63


8/9


9/9

2 6

Revue Numismatique PI. III

Kroll

thenian

tetradrachms recently

discovered

n the

thenian

gora

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

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Transcript of Athenian tetradrachms recently discovered in the Athenian Agora / John H. Kroll