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There are artefacts and archaeological remains dating back to the fifth century BC. – including a pot filled with an undisclosed number of precious gold coins that had been hidden for more than 2,000 years following the continued excavation of an ancient Greek city in western Turkey.
Researchers discovered the stash in Notion, an 80-acre fortified city that had been occupied since the sixth century BC. to the first century AD. Found buried — likely intentionally — under the floor of a fifth-century BC courtyard house, the fortune may tell the story of an ancient mercenary soldier during those times of conflict, according to a University of Michigan news release. .
“It is extremely rare to find such a valuable discovery in a controlled archaeological dig,” excavation leader Dr. Christopher Ratté, professor of Mediterranean art and archeology at the University of Michigan and director of the Notion Archeology Project, said in the release.
“No one buries a hoard of coins, especially precious metal coins, without the intention of finding them. So only the worst misfortune can explain the preservation of such a treasure.”
The site includes the typical features of an ancient Greek city, such as a theatre, temples, townhouses and a market. The notion of thousands of years ago did not gain much traction until about ten years ago when Ratté and a team of researchers began aerial surveying and mapping of the visible remains of the city found from the Hellenistic era (323 BC to 30 BC).
But when the researchers began their excavation in 2022, with the aim of studying the remains that were not visible above ground, they made a delightful discovery: Beneath the foundations of a large courtyard house from the Hellenistic era were the remains of a house older with pottery fragments within it. walls dating to the fifth century BC, according to the release. The researchers then found the cache of coins buried under the floor of the older house.
The artifacts tell the story of the people who lived in the city not only during the period between the reign of Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire but also centuries before, when tensions were high between the Greek civilization and the Persian Empire.
Persian darics for soldier
The newly discovered coins date from the reign of the Persian Empire (sixth century BC to about 330 BC) and are called Persian darics for the kneeling archer on the obverse of the coin depicting King Darius of Persia. Like most ancient coins from the sixth to fourth centuries BC, this currency is undated, which poses a challenge for researchers trying to pinpoint when it was produced, said Dr Peter van Alfen , chief curator at the American Numismatic Society, was not part of the dig.
“Some huge hoards of darics have been found in the past, numbering thousands of coins, but these were not found by archaeologists, so the coins were dispersed and the hoard context was lost forever,” van Alfen said in an email. “This daric hoard has rarely been found in a controlled archaeological dig. … The (archaeological) context of this deposit may provide dated pegs for certain types of darics.”
During the roughly 200 centuries the coins were produced, they had minor stylistic variations that researchers have tried to put in chronological order, Ratté said. By discovering coins together with external dating evidence, scientists can understand how this coin had a high intrinsic value during the time.
It’s unclear exactly why the precious coin was used – one guess is that it was a way to pay off mercenaries, van Alfen said. One gold coin would be equivalent to a month’s salary for a mercenary soldier, according to the University of Michigan. Coins were commonly used for everyday expenses, such as going to the shop. These were called Persian silver sigloi, and 20 of these would be equal to one gold coin.
“The fact that this hoard was found in a house suggests that they were being used in this case as a store of wealth, whatever the intended purpose of those producing darics,” said van Alfen. Because of the high value of the gold coin, “it was much more efficient to store wealth in gold coin than in silver,” he said.
As to why the owner did not return to retrieve the gold, Ratté suggested that it could be an indicator of where Notion was the border between Greek civilization and the Persian Empire during the centuries of conflict . A number of cases could have led to the abandonment of the coins, he suggested, including one in 427 BC. when an Athenian general attacked a group of Persian mercenaries and killed them.
Another such closure occurred at the end of the fifth century BC when the Spartan fleet defeated the Athenians in battle and they were forced to evacuate the city, he said.
It is also possible that the treasure belonged to some wealthy citizen who hoped to one day live as a king, as “Pythius (an ancient Greek architect) became very rich who had about 4 million darics in his chest as told by Herodotus,” van Alfen said.
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