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Coins from the Mycenae Excavations, 1939–1962
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2013
Extract
Since 1939 the British and Helleno-British excavations at Mycenae have produced sixty-six coins, sixty-three of which are classified as Greek. Most of these probably circulated in the Hellenistic kome of Mycenae. This fortified dependency of Argos is mentioned by Plutarch as the place where Aristippus, the tyrant of Argos, was killed in 235 B.C. It was certainly founded earlier, however. The most likely time appears to have been in the later fourth or early third century B.C.
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- Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1974
References
Acknowledgements. I am grateful to both Mrs. Elizabeth Wace French and Lord William Taylour for permitting me to study and publish the coins from the Mycenae excavations. Mrs. French also very kindly offered her assistance at Nauplion, and prepared FIG. I.
1 The three non-Greek coins include one Napoleonic copper, cancelled from the inventory of the 1939 season, and two Byzantine bronze coins: one of Leo VI, BMC Imperial Byzantine Coinage 447, 8; and one of Romanus I, BMC Imperial Byzantine Coinage 456, 19. Both of these were found near the surface in the Agamemnoneion, about a kilometre south-south-west of the citadel, and were published by Cook, J. M., BSA xlviii (1953) 68. 6.Google Scholar The totals of Greek coins found in each excavation season are:
1939: twelve silver and one bronze, all identified by Mrs. Josephine Shear. Two of the silver were missing after the Second World War, Catalogue no. 9 and no. 19 below. Wace, , BSA xlv (1950) 203–4, 224Google Scholar, gives an account of the history of the finds from the Mycenae excavations during and after the war.
1952: two silver and three bronze.
1953: two bronze published by Taylour, , BSA 1 (1955) 203.Google Scholar
1954: one silver and nine bronze.
1955: six bronze.
1959: one bronze. This and the following seasons were part of the joint Helleno-British project at Mycenae with J. Papademetriou and G. Mylonas.
1960: three bronze.
1962: two silver and twenty-one bronze identified by Martin Price.
2 Only the one Greek Imperial (Catalogue no. 62, below) can be assigned to a date later than the Hellenistic period.
3 Aratus 29.
4 See Wace, Mycenae 24, Boethius, , BSA xxv (1921–1923) 422–8Google Scholar, and Mylonas, , AJA lxvi (1962) 303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The date of the founding of the Kome may be determined more accurately by a study of the pottery from the Hellenistic houses. This is presently being undertaken by Wolf Rudolph, who reports that the Hellenistic series starts in the last quarter of the fourth century B.c. For the moment the following evidence suggests a date in the later fourth century or early third century B.C.: 1. A hoard of 3786 silver coins, found during Tsountas' excavations at Mycenae in 1895, was buried between 250 and 240 B.C. according to Hackens in Thompson, Mørkholm, and Kraay (editors), An Inventory of Greek Coin Hoards, no. 171 (hereafter cited as Inventory). It is likely that this hoard was collected and buried at a time when Mycenae was a community of some importance.
2. The pottery from the Perseia Fountain House gives a date of the early third century B.C. for the construction of this building, according to Hood, , BSA xlviii (1953) 27.Google Scholar
3. A sanctuary one kilometre north of the Citadel was extensively rebuilt during the third century. In the clearing of this sanctuary was an inscribed shield, once part of the spoils given to the Argives by the army of Pyrrhus of Eplrus in 272 B.C. See AR (1965–6) 8; Shear, , AJA lxx (1966) 195Google Scholar; Mylonas, , PAE (1965) 95–6Google Scholar, and Ergon (1965) 68–71. 4. A fourth-century B.C. graffito was discovered at Mycenae, although Woodhead suggests it was probably written by visitors. See BSA 1 (1955) 238.
The first three pleces of evidence listed above indicate that Mycenae was re-established in the early third century B.c. In general, the chronology of the coins agrees with this. The graffito and the pottery being studied by Professor Rudolph, however, suggest a late fourth-century date. A similar gap between the dates of Hellenistic pottery and the coins has called into question the time of the main occupation of Koroni. The excavators of Koroni dated this to the period of the Chremonidean War, 265–261 B.C., on numismatic and historical evidence. See Hesperia xxxi (1962) 26–61 and xxxiii (1964) 69–75. But Grace, and Edwards, , Hesperia xxxii (1963) 109–11, 319–44Google Scholar, place some of the stamped amphorae and other pottery from Koroni in the late fourth century B.c. or in the first two decades of the third century B.C. Perhaps, in part, the difficulty is more apparent than real. Numismatists generally take into consideration time for circulation and wear. But a pottery series, dependent on closed deposits such as graves used only once, may well supply the date of manufacture rather than the date of the use and discarding of a particular plece. For further discussion of this problem see Thompson, Dorothy B., Hesperia 1952, 121 n. 21Google Scholar, and Jones, , Graham, , and Sackett, , BSA lxviii (1973) 372, 414–8.Google Scholar
Mycenae, of course, might have been sparsely inhabited during the Classical period. The Agamemnoneion contained pottery from Geometric to Hellenistic and other material. See Cook, , BSA xlviii (1955) 30–68.Google Scholar As a political entity, however, Mycenae was not re-established until the Hellenistic period.
5 See Wace, , BSA xlv (1950) 205 fig. 1 and 223 fig. 3Google Scholar, for the location of this trench at Mycenae. The hoard, Inventory 108, mentioned by Wace, ibid. 224, was found at about the middle of the trench, 0·40 m. from the west edge and 0·90 m. below the original surface of Schliemann's dump. Wace concluded from the information he recorded in 1939 that the house-walls were almost certainly of the Hellenistic period. He thought unlikely but did not entirely exclude the possibility that a few pleces of the walls might be Classical. Unfortunately the sherds from this area were not recovered after the Second World War.
6 The coins of Sicyon are being studied by Mrs. J. C. Thompson; I am grateful for her interest in and dating of this example.
7 See above, note 4, section 1, for this hoard.
8 Preservation of the finest coins is an aspect of Gresham's Law. This has been observed in other hoards such as those from Metsovo, and Yannina, , Franke, , JNG viii (1957) 31–50Google Scholar (Inventory nos. 231 and 235). These two hoards con tained coins of the Eplrote Koinon minted from 234 B.C. and classed in the early portion of the series in Franke, , Die antiken Münzen von Eplros i. 146–7.Google Scholar These coins were in such good condition that it is surprising to find them in the same hoard with coins of Perseus, minted fifty or more years later. Thompson, M., The Agrinion Hoard, NNM 159 107–8Google Scholar, concludes that the condition and date of the Greek coinages in this hoard suggest a burial date between 155 and 150 B.C. but the Roman denarii in the same hoard require a burial date of shortly after 135 B.C. Consequently, so long as there is no good evidence for extensive habitation at Mycenae during the early fourth century B.C., the late fourth- or early third-century burial date for the hoard must stand.
9 Coins of Phocis of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. are recorded from the following Peloponnesian hoards: Inventory 35: Lappa, Elis, burial in fifth century B.C.; and 182: Therianos, Achaea, burial c. 220 B.C. Coins of Thebes of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. are recorded in the following Peloponnesian hoards: Inventory 28: Chavari, Elis, burial c. 450–400 B.C.; 40: Arcadia?, burial in the late fifth century B.c.; 48: Andritsaina, Elis, burial c 380 B.C.; 6o: Peloponnesus, burial c 350 B.C.; 75: Pyrgos, Elis, burial between 330–320 B.C.; 76: Kyparissia, Messenia, burial c. 377 B.C.; 102: Pegadakia, Arcadia, burial in the fourth century B.C.; 107: Peloponnesus, burial in the late fourth century B.C.; 113: Alipheira, burial near the end of the fourth century B.C.; 122: Mavriki, Arcadia, burial c. 300 B.C. Coins of both Phocis and Thebes are recorded in Inventory 67: Moulaki near Sicyon, burial between 350 and 323 B.C.; and 74: Magéira, Elis, burial between 330 and 325 B.c.
10 Although the hoard might have been added to over two or even three generations, it could just as well have been the collection of one individual who could not afford coins in the best condition (with the exception of the Sicyonian stater, Catalogue no. 18) but had to be satisfied with pleces from distant mints or worn, older coins that cost less to obtain.
11 See above, page 95 and note 4.
12 See the plan, BSA xlv (1950) 203 fig. 3.
13 The rarity of silver coins found outside hoards in ex cavations is illustrated by the situation at Corinth. There, between 1896 and 1929, only twenty Greek-period silver coins were recorded in contrast to 562 Greek-period bronze coins. See Edwards, Corinth vi passim.
14 From Argos there were four silver and thirty-three bronze; from other mints there were three silver and twelve bronze, excluding the Julia Domna coin from Boiai, Catalogue no. 62, and the missing stater of Thebes perhaps connected with the hoard, Catalogue no. 9.
15 Eleven pre-Roman Argive bronze coin types are listed in BMC 140, 143–4, 146–7. Only seven of these types occur among the thirty-three Argive bronze coins from Mycenae.
16 Only two of the five series of symbols and letters of the Hera/quiver type, Bmc 147 nos. 140–6, were found at Mycenae. This fact serves to counter the suggestion that such a great number of Hera/quiver type coins at Mycenae resulted merely from the great volume of the issue.
17 Pausanias found it deserted in the second century Wace, A.D., Mycenae (1949) 20.Google Scholar The coin of Julia Domna from Boiai (?) (Catalogue no. 62) indicates that there were visitors to Mycenae in Roman Imperial times. A thorough study of the bronze coinage of Argos and the Hellenistic pottery from the Mycenae excavations should give a more precise date for the abandonment of Mycenae in Hellenistic times.
It is interesting that a hoard of bronzes, Inventory 217: Argos, buried in the early second century B.C., contained only four different types of Argive coins with the Hera/quiver issues dominating: 92 Hera/quiver, 47 Apollo/wolf, 50 Apollo/tripos-lebes and 10 wolf/quiver. The burial date of this hoard and the dominance of the Hera/quiver issue as in the excavation coins from Mycenae may point to an end of the Mycenaean kome in the first half of the second century B.C.
18 Wace mentions this circuit wall in BSA 1 (1955) 180. See FIG. 1 for the findspots of the coins at Mycenae.
19 This was formerly called the Citadel House, Taylour, , BSA lxiv (1969) 259.Google Scholar For the relationship of the citadel and the areas excavated outside it see BSA xlix (1954) 229 fig. 1 and xlviii (1953) 2 fig. 1. The coins are: Catalogue nos. 3, 14–15, 17, 20–21, 25, 28–31, 33–5, 37–9, 42, 45–54, 56–8. 61–2.
20 From immediately above the floor of the Perseia Fountain House: Catalogue nos. 13 and 24. From the surface earth of the Perseia Fountain House: Catalogue nos. 40, 41, and 55. For a plan of the excavated areas see BSA 1 (1955) 200 fig. 1.
21 Catalogue nos. 2, 4, 5, 16, 32, 60, and 63. For a plan of the excavated area see BSA li (1956) 108 fig. 3 and 1 (1955) 176 fig. 1. It is possible that no. 63 should be associated with the group of nos. 2, 4, 5, and 16 as it came from the dump of that trench.
22 Catalogue nos. 26 and 36. For plans see BSA li (1956) 114 fig. 5 and 1 (1955) 176 fig. 1.
23 Catalogue no. 1. This was formerly called the House of Stirrup Jars; for a plan see BSA xlviii (1953) 10 fig. 2.
24 Catalogue nos. 19 and 44. For a plan see Wace, Mycenae fig. 32; ibid. 37 has a discussion of the Hellenistic house over the House of Columns; see also Mylonas, AJA 70 (1966) 193.Google Scholar
25 Catalogue no. 59; see BSA 1 (1955) 180.
26 Catalogue nos. 27, and 43. See plans, BSA xlv (1950) 205 fig. 1, 209 fig. 2; lii (1957) 207 fig. 2.
27 The coins were weighed at a Nauplion pharmacy on a simple balance; the weights are accurate only to the first decimal place.
28 A hoard from Chandrinos, Messenia, Inventory 139, burial c. 300–275 B.c., contained two bronzes of this issue.