“Herodotos’ ‘Aryandic’ silver and bullion use in Persian period Egypt,” American Journal of Numismatics 16/17 (2004/5): 7-46. |
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AJN Second Series – (–) pp. –
© e American Numismatic Society
Herodotus’ “Aryandic” Silver and Bullion Use in PersianPeriod Egypt
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In light of a new mid-h c. Egyptian hoard containing three large planoconvex ingots and coins and coin fragments, this article reviews the hoard and textual evidence for bullion use in Persian-period Egypt (c. – ), concluding that silver bullion in the form of Hacksilber and ingots was used for a large range of monetary transactions, and that within these transactions the Egyptians recognized at least three grades of silver, the most pure of which was the “Aryandic silver” mentioned by Herodotos (.).
In and , the American Numismatic Society received two important unpublished donations: nineteen Greek coins and coin fragments plus two dumps¹ and three large plano-convex (“cake”) ingots. ese gis form the larger portion of a h-century hoard that was found in Egypt in the early part of the twentieth century; since the s the hoard had resided in a collection in Switzerland that was recently sold. An additional lot of two coin fragments from the hoard remain in a private American collection. Although there is no way to ascertain if all these
* e American Numismatic Society, Fulton St., New York, NY , USA (vanalfen @numismatics.org). . I use “dump” to refer to smaller, i.e., g or less, individually formed, unworked pieces of silver. Unlike the plano-convex “cake” ingots, which were likely formed using a crucible or mould (see below), many of the dumps, which are oen fairly at, were formed by pouring molten silver onto a at surface to cool, or by melting silver in or on an instrument with a mostly at cross-section. e following abbreviations are used: IGCH = M. ompson, O. Mørkholm, and C.M.
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lots compose the entire hoard, what material we have is nevertheless signicant because of the evidence it provides for the monetary use of silver bullion in Egypt during the h century . e presentation of this new hoard provides an opportunity to review the evidence for bullion use in Persian-period Egypt vis-à-vis coinage, and to address the question of Herodotos’ “Aryandic silver” (.). Using contemporary hoard material in conjunction with evidence from h-century Aramaic texts from Egypt, I argue (contra Tuplin ) that Aryandic silver is not coinage but exceptionally pure silver bullion. Furthermore, I argue that silver bullion was commonly used for a considerable range of economic transactions in Persian-period Egypt, probably well into the fourth century , but was predicated upon the identication and conrmation of at least three grades of silver. “Aryandic” silver was simply the highest grade of bullion.
I H C
e new hoard contains a total of coins or fragments of coins, four smaller silver dumps and fragments of the larger ingots, and three large cake ingots. More than half of the coins (ten in total) are Athenian tetradrachms, the other nine coins include two fragments of Alexander I octadrachms, and one (perhaps two) Lycian stater(s), a stater from Idalion, and fragments of other coins that might include a stater of the Orescii. e Idalion stater (no. ) and most of the Athenian tetradrachms remain intact; nearly all the coins, complete or not, bear chisel cuts. Athens Obv.: Head of Athena wearing crested Attic helmet ornamented with oral spray and olive leaves to r. Rev.: Owl standing to r., to r. AΘE; to l. olive sprig and lunar crescent. (in order of descending weight) . ANS ..; . g; :; rev. cut . ANS ..; . g; rev. cut . ANS ..; . g; :; rev. cut . ANS ..; . g; :; rev. cut . ANS ..; . g; :; (no marks) . ANS ..; . g; partially melted fragment with fragment attached . ANS ..; . g; :; (no marks) . ANS ..; . g; :; (no marks)
Kraay, An Inventory of Greek Coins Hoards (New York: American Numismatic Society, ); CH = Coin Hoards –, vols. I–IX (London: Royal Numismatic Society, –); TAD = B. Porten and A. Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt, vols. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, –).
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. Private collection; . g; fragment cut on one side; partially melted. Not illustrated. . ANS ..; . g; :; fragment cut on three sides Insofar as their state of preservation allows observation, all ten of these owls are of the later h-century standardized type, which began in the s and was minted in vast numbers for a number of decades thereaer (Starr : ch. ; Kroll , ); none appear to be imitative. Some hesitation might arise in attributing no. to the standardized group (note the small letters on the reverse), but with so much of the coin cut away, we must rely on other indicators, such as the helmet ornament and hair of the obverse, which appear to be no earlier than Starr’s group V. e weights of nos. – are well above the Athenian tetradrachm standard of c. . g, but since these coins have not been thoroughly cleaned the remaining encrustation likely accounts for the greater weight. As on other c. owls, the die axes in this group are irregular; it was only toward the end of the h century and into the fourth that the axis was regularized at :. Macedonia: Alexander I Obv.: Horseman, wearing chlamys and petasos, carrying two spears, leading horse r. Rev.: Quadripartite incuse square . AR octadrachm fragment; . g (private collection). Not illustrated. . AR octadrachm fragment; . g (ANS ..) Enough remains of these coins to make their identication possible but little else can be said about them. Troxell (, no. ; following Raymond , –) suggests a date of c. –/ for this series. Lycia . AR stater fragment; . g; obv.: (obliterated); rev.: sphinx seated to l.; rev. cut (ANS ..) . AR stater fragment; . g; obv.: (obliterated); rev.: triskeles within square dot border, K (?); rev. cut (ANS ..) Although the obverse type is effaced, the Lycian triskeles on the reverse of no. makes the attribution certain. Below one of the legs of the triskeles there is what appears to be a solitary “K” (the encrustation on the coin lends some doubt); if so, parallels for this reverse can be found among the coins of the Lycian dynast Kuprlli, c. – (cf. Mørkholm and Zahle : pl. , no. ). Much less certain is the attribution of no. to Lycia. As on no. no obverse type remains (a rather frequent occurrence on Lycian coins due in part to the use of extremely worn dies and heavy circulation), while the reverse type appears to be a sphinx seated to l., with only the head, breast, and curved tip of the wing visible.
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As a type the sphinx is common enough on the coinages of Teos and Abdera, and on coins of Chios and Idalion (see no. ), but not as a reverse type as here. e sphinx also appears on a few rarer issues from Lycia, mostly as an obverse type facing l. or r., but also much less commonly on the reverse (as on ANS .., which has a sphinx on both sides of the coin). us a Lycian attribution seems highly probable. Idalion . AR stater; . g; obv. cut (ANS ..) Obv.: Sphinx seated to r., two palmettes, one under belly, the other under raised paw; to r. under chin, two Cypro-syllabic characters (o, ne?); to l. above rump two Cypro-syllabic characters (ba?, sa). Rev.: Irregular incuse square. is coin belongs to one of the rst issues from Idalion.³ Traces of Cypro-syllabic characters can be seen on the obverse of the coin, but because of wear their reading cannot be conrmed; most clearly visible is sa directly over the sphinx’s rump, and perhaps o beneath the chin. is coin is closely related to a group of Idalion staters from the Larnaca hoard (IGCH , c. – ), that bear the Cypro-syllabic characters ba, sa, o, ne in roughly the same conguration as they seem to appear here (Destrooper-Georgiades : nos. –). e order in which these characters should be read is not certain. Oen on Cypriot coins ba is an abbreviation for the royal title βα(-σιλέως), which means that the remaining three characters could be construed as a personal name.⁴ e date for this series is c. (DestrooperGeorgiades : , ; Price and Waggoner : ). Unattributed . AR stater fragment; traces of obv./rev. types; . g (ANS ..) . AR stater fragment; obv.: traces of gure and striated border; . g; obv. cuts (ANS ..) . AR stater fragment; obv.: traces of gures; rev.: quadripartite incuse square; obv. cut (ANS ..) . AR stater fragment; obv.: traces of gures; . g (ANS ..)
. For the attribution of these sphinx-bearing coins to Idalion see Sheedy (). e rst series from this mint (c. –) had no inscription, but shared the same irregular incuse reverse with the second (?) inscribed series; a later third (?) series bore a lotus ower reverse; see BMC Cyprus, Idalion, pl. . . Robinson (: ) suggested Onasagoras, the father of a magistrate at Idalion known from a solitary inscription dated c. (ICS ), a suggestion that DestrooperGeorgiades (: ) dismisses for lack of corroborating evidence.
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e size, fabric, and quadripartite reverse of no. is similar to the staters dating – attributed to the Orescii, a northern Aegean ethnos (Price and Waggoner : nos. –); traces of what seem to be the nymph’s head and parts of the centaur can be made out, but this might simply be wishful thinking. Clearly visible on the obverse of no. is an elaborately decorated borderline similar to the truncations oen seen on rhyton-like animal heads on Archaic coins (cf. Price and Waggoner : no. ). Perhaps also visible is the rear portion of an ear or eye near the line, but this is not certain. No attribution can reasonably be suggested for this coin, as is the case for nos. and . Small ingots/dumps . Complete round AR dump; . g (ANS ..) . AR edge fragment of large cake ingot; . g; . x . mm (ANS ..) . Complete round AR dump, cut; . g; c. mm (ANS ..) . Small AR crystallized fragment (of larger ingot?); . g; . x . mm (ANS ..) Nos. and are well-formed round dumps. No. is coin-like in diameter but is on average mm thick with hammered edges. No. also has hammered edges but is half the thickness of no. ; its size and weight suggest that it may be a partially melted coin. However, the large extrusion on one side of the object makes it certain that the silver was completely molten before cooling; thus any original edge would have disappeared.⁵ e side with the extrusion is at and smooth; the opposite side is considerably rougher. us it would appear that the dump was made in a small crucible or mould. No. seems to be the missing edge-portion of cake ingot no. . Both pieces mostly t together, but because the broken edge area of no. is encrusted (the damage to the ingot obviously took place in antiquity), as is the corresponding area on no. , no exact t is possible. No. likewise may be a portion of the extrusion on no. . Large cake ingots . Complete cake ingot; . g; diameter at widest point: mm; average thickness mm (ANS ..) . Incomplete cake ingot; . g; diameter at widest point: . mm; average thickness mm; cut (ANS ..) . Complete cake ingot; diameter at widest point: . mm; average thickness: mm; . g; cut (ANS ..)
. Two of the three small Egyptian cake ingots published recently by Kroll (: nos. –) have at edges as well; that on no. seems due to the mould or crucible in which it was cast, while the edge on no. might be hammered.
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All three ingots retain a thin (c. mm thick) layer of encrustation over some of their surfaces, which limits the accuracy of the observations and of their weights. While it is clear that all three share a similar plano-convex prole, it remains unclear specically what type of instrument, e.g., crucible or mould, was used to form them or why this particular shape was favored; their round shape is not particularly conducive to efficient storage, nor are they stackable like rectangular or slab ingots. roughout the history of metallurgy crucibles with rounded bottoms have been favored because of their ability to heat and pour contents evenly. It could be that a range of different-sized purpose-made crucibles were available (at a potter’s? at a gold or silversmith’s?) to t every need.⁶ However, the size and shape of nos. – also roughly correspond to the bottom of a number of different types of commonly available ceramic vessels, e.g., the ubiquitous Persian-period “mortarium” bowl (e.g., Singer-Avitz : g. ..–). Recycling old bowls and cups as crucibles or moulds would be an efficient means of producing these ingots, especially in a nonofficial context, which as I argue below is the most plausible explanation for the production of these ingots, and so the shape could simply be a byproduct of such an expedient.⁷ Each of the three ingots also has one or more extrusions on their at sides. ose on nos. – are comparatively large and angular, almost knob-like, while those on no. are like solidied bubbles.⁸ In places on no. where the encrustation has been chipped away, both the convex and at sides of the ingot are quite smooth and free of small bumps or other irregularities, the large extrusion excepted. A deep cut runs down the center of the at side of both nos. –. In both cases a chisel smaller than the width of the ingot was used since the edges of the cut are not uniform. e violence of the cutting might also have bent or twisted no. , and perhaps contributed to the fragmentation of its edge (see no. above). ere are no such cuts or marks on no. .
. Ingots nos. – could have been cast in the same crucible or mould, but that used for no. was larger. Separate crucibles or moulds were also used to produce the much smaller cake ingots published by Kroll (: nos. –). Bivar (: ), citing Herodotus ., which describes the Persian King (i.e., treasury workers) pouring molten silver into πίθους κεραµίνους (some type of larger ceramic vessel), assumed that cake ingots were “formed by metal solidifying on the bottom of a jar.” For a fuller discussion of Herodotus . see Zournatzi (). . Bivar (: ), commenting on the non-standard size and weight of the seventhcentury Nûsh-i Jân hoard bar ingots, notes: “Evidently such ingots were not cast by repeated use of a single mould, but at this stage each was made from an individual mould, presumably of clay, which was broken or abandoned aer the casting of each single bar.” e same might have been the case for the cake ingots. . Conophagos (: –) indicates that extrusions of these sorts only form on silver with a purity of . or greater. See also Conophaogs et al. (: –) and Kroll (: ).
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e ten Athenian coins necessitate a terminus post quem date for the hoard of c. , although likely not much more than a decade beyond it. e Athenian coins generally show little sign of wear, unlike the rest of the issues in the hoard, most of which were in circulation for many years. Also, evidence from other hoards indicates that coins from the Northern Aegean, Lycia, and Cyprus do not appear simultaneously in Near Eastern hoards much aer c. , and, as a group, are mostly conned to hoards dating to around the second quarter to mid-h century.⁹ A suggested date for the hoard is therefore c. . Composition e (apparent) preponderance of Athenian issues in the hoard is a harbinger of the “virtual monopoly” (IGCH p. ) that Athenian and Athenian-type coins came to have in Egypt. Egyptian hoards dated to the early h century display a healthy mix of other Aegean and Levantine issues (cf. IGCH –), but toward the end of the h century and into the fourth Athenian tetradrachms, both authentic issues and their imitations, become preponderant. Precisely how and why this transformation took place is not known, save that the Athenians appear to have considerably stepped up the production and export of their large-denomination coinage soon aer they removed the Delian treasury to Athens in ; the millions of coins emanating from Athens in the context of trade and military operations may have simply overwhelmed all other coinages circulating in the Near East.¹⁰ Unfortunately, there are no other well-recorded mid-h-century hoards from Egypt to provide comparanda, nor has the post- coinage of Athens been well studied, so little else can be said about these matters here. e appearance of the Northern Aegean, Lycian, and Cypriot issues in the hoard is comparable to their appearance in two Egyptian hoards that date about years earlier (IGCH , ‘Asyut,’ and , ‘Zagazig’), and to a contemporaneous hoard from the Levant (IGCH , ‘Jordan,’ c. ). Again, their generally worn, cut, and fragmentary state indicates that these coins had been in the general pool of coins circulating in Egypt and elsewhere for some time.
. See “composition” below. Also note that in their study of hoards containing Lycian, Cypriot, and Phoenician coinage, Vismara and Martini () indicate that hoards containing coins from these three regions simultaneously date primarily to the second quarter of the h century. While this hoard does not appear to contain any Phoenician issues, there are Lycian and Cypriote issues present. . For the increased output and circulation of Athenian coinage aer c. see Starr (: ch. ); Kroll (: –); and Nicolet-Pierre ().
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O H E
Although it is oen noted that Near Eastern hoards of the Persian period (roughly the sixth through fourth centuries ) contain cut coins, coin fragments, and unmarked bullion of various shapes and sizes, no overview of such hoards has yet been compiled. In an attempt to remedy the situation partially, I provide a summary of hoard compositions in Tables –. Since my interest is primarily identifying behavioral patterns in the use of coinage and bullion in the Levant and Egypt, I do not provide a full catalogue of the relevant hoards, but focus on the appearance of cuts and countermarks on the coins, and the presence of ingots, dumps, coin fragments, and other types of bullion. While I realize that the results of any such summary are seriously awed, due to the imprecise nature of hoard nds and their recording and (ongoing) publication, any overview of the available evidence, no matter how intrinsically compromised, is able to provide at the very least an impression of the monetary situation in Egypt and the Levant during the period in question. I cannot pretend that this overview is exhaustive or conclusive, in part because I have primarily limited myself to hoards that have been published in some easily accessible fashion (e.g., IGCH or CH), and so can be veried by scholars with access to basic numismatic references. Many relevant hoards, of course, still remain unpublished in numerous vaults, displays, and private collections. And there is also the possibility that many hoards, especially those containing solely unmarked Hacksilber and ingots, were melted down by those who found them prior to being recorded. Geographically this overview includes hoards from Egypt and the regions along the Levantine coast from Cilicia to Gaza; I shall use “the Levant” as a convenient shorthand for this region. Offshore I have also included Cyprus, which is here treated separately since, at least from a numismatic and monetary perspective, Cyprus was quite distinct from the rest of the region. e minting of coins on Cyprus began decades earlier than it did elsewhere in the Levant, starting in the late sixth century, for example. To the west and north I have included Cilicia because the economic, cultural, and political ties between this region and Egypt, the Levant, and Cyprus had long been quite close; monetary behavior in Cilicia also provides good comparanda for the situation in Egypt. Since coins began to trickle into Egypt and the Levant at about the same time that Persian hegemony in both areas was secured, the terminus post quem date for this overview, c. , is easily set; less easily determined is the terminus ante quem date. Certainly in many locales the monetary habits developed over the previous centuries must have continued in some fashion for a number of years aer Alexander the Great’s campaigns in the region in the s, despite the ongoing and rapid Hellenization of eastern monetary customs that followed in his wake. Because my interest is in identifying
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these habits as they existed before Alexander's forays made a deep cultural impact, I have set c. as the terminus ante quem date. I have also included any hoards listed as “late fourth century” so long as they do not include Alexander types or other post- issues. Finally, under the Levant rubric I have included two large and important ingot/Hacksilber hoards—CH . and Psterer ()—both of which were assigned Black Sea provenances for reasons that have proven to be unfounded; de Callataÿ () has rightly argued that these two hoards came not from the Black Sea region, but from the Levant. Tables – provide comparative information on coins in hoards that were validated with cuts and/or countermarks from post- Cilicia (“C,” Table ), the Archaic-period Levant (“AL,” Table ), the Classical-period Levant (“CL,” Table ), Archaic Egypt (“AE,” Table ), and Classical-period Egypt (“CE,” Table ).¹¹ In general, nearly half of all hoards from Egypt contain validated coins (AE ; CE ), while only a third or so of hoards from Cilicia and the Levant do (C ; CL ). Signicantly, hoards found on Cyprus contained no validated coins. Cutting coins with a knife or chisel at least once was by far the most frequent means of validating coins in all periods (C ; CL ; AE ; CE ). As for the total number of cut coins within these hoards, no certain patterns emerge. What can be noted, however, is that rarely does the proportion of cut coins in a hoard surpass of the total number of coins in the hoard; only in two cases does the proportion surpass (IGCH , ; CH ., ). ere are fewer hoards containing coins cut more than once (C ; CL ; AE ; CE ), and the proportion of these coins within the hoards tends to be rather small, generally single digits, and rarely more than . Countermarking is a behavior seemingly conned to the fourth century in all regions (again countermarking is not seen in Cypriot hoards), wherein the proportion of hoards containing countermarked coins hovers around (C ; CL ; CE ). As with cut coins, no obvious patterns emerge in terms of the proportions of countermarked coins within the hoards, although in a few cases
. e term “validated” recalls the Greek verb δοκιµάζω (‘to test, validate’) from the Athenian coinage law of (SEG .; Stroud ), in which the δοκιµαστής (‘public Validator’) is instructed to test coins for counterfeits and imitations. It should be noted, however, that in Athens at least the Validator only cut coins when they were determined to be counterfeits and were removed from circulation (ln. ); in Egypt and the Levant cutting does not appear to have demonetized the coins. For the sake of brevity, I have adopted “Archaic” to denote the period from c. – , and “Classical” for the period – . Neither the terms nor the chronological divisions are ideal, particularly when dealing with Near Eastern as opposed to Aegean subjects. Note that there are no Archaic hoards from Cilicia. Also, the total number of Archaic hoards from the Levant is four, thus the usefulness of any statistics to be derived from this group is questionable; for further information see the Appendices.
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the proportion appears to be around of the total number of coins within a particular hoard (e.g., CH ., ; van Alfen b “Endicott’s,” ?; IGCH , ). Finally, hoards containing individual coins that are both cut and countermarked are few in number (C ; CL ; CE ). Tables – also provide comparative information on the total number of hoards containing fragmented coins (functionally no different than Hacksilber), ingots, dumps, and Hacksilber. Unmarked silver appears to be wholly absent from Cilician and Cypriot hoards, a signicant observation if true since it restricts the monetary use of silver bullion during the Persian period to the Levant and Egypt (at least in terms of the areas under consideration here). Some of CL hoards contained unmarked silver, but here it should be noted that most of the unmarked silver was jewelry, either whole or fragmented, a type of unmarked silver that is mostly absent from Egyptian hoards.¹² It is in Egyptian hoards, especially Archaic hoards, where an abundance of unmarked silver is found (AE ; CE ), oen in the form of complete ingots (AE ; CE ; compare this to CL ). A larger proportion of Egyptian hoards contains fragmented coins compared to those found in other regions (C ; CL ; AE ; CE ). Also frequently found in CE hoards are silver dumps (, but for AE; compare for CL).
B U E
e hoard evidence, such as it is, strongly suggests that validated coins and unmarked silver played a comparatively greater role and for a longer duration in the economies of Egypt than they did in the Levant, Cyprus, or Cilicia. e elevated presence of bullion in Egypt would seem to correspond to the comparative lateness of Egyptian minting; no Persian-period hoards with bullion are as yet known from Cyprus, for example, where some communities were minting as early as the late sixth century (e.g., Salamis, “Paphos”). e Phoenician cities of Byblos, Tyre, and Sidon soon followed with indigenous issues c. ; satrapal issues in Cilicia followed a generation or two later. At some point in the fourth century, early or late we do not know, communities in Samaria, Judea, and Philistia were also producing coins. ere are, of course, hoards with bullion found in or close by these areas, but in quantities not at all comparable to the overall proportion of those found in contemporary Egypt. e earliest securely dated coin produced by a recognized authority in Egypt dates to c. (a single gold Athenian imitation signed by the ruler Tachos); there may be evidence for unofficial (?) production of imitations
. To date only one roughly Persian-period Egyptian hoard has been noted as containing any jewelry, whole or fragmented, that found at Samanoud in the s, which contained pieces of Hacksilber, but no coins. e original commentator felt the hoard dated to the early Ptolemaic period, but as the hoard was never properly published, this cannot be veried; see Dressel and Regling (: no. ) and Kroll (: , “a”).
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of Athenian coins as early as the s, but it was not until aer the reconquest of Egypt by the Persians in that large-scale official coining in Egypt truly began.¹³ Again I need to stress the tentativeness of these hoard-based observations, but the delay in indigenous Egyptian coin production (when compared to the northern Levant and the Greek world) would likely account for the greater proportion of bullion hoards from Egypt than elsewhere, and for widespread use of bullion in transactions (Kroll , –). Although certain sectors of the Egyptian economy were highly monetized (as will be seen below), there was, apparently, no need for an official indigenous coinage in Egypt until the later fourth century, again suggesting that other monetary instruments, like bullion, were in use. Why this was so is a complex question and one beyond the scope of this paper. What concerns us here are particular aspects of the way in which bullion and foreign coins in Egypt functioned and were handled, which may ultimately help to shed light on larger social and economic complexities, and more specically may help to contextualize the new hoard under discussion. We begin with cutting as a method of control. Although it is not immediately obvious, the presence of the cuts on coins in Egyptian and Levantine hoards can be related to the monetary use of bullion. Cutting coins with a knife or chisel was a practice rarely seen outside of the far eastern reaches of the Mediterranean and it has long been assumed that this practice was meant to test for silver-plated coins with bronze cores, either by private individuals or authorities.¹⁴ Plated coins were circulating in the Near East, especially during the Classical period: of CL hoards and of CE hoards contain silver-plated coins with bronze cores, some of which are even cut.¹⁵ While it is safe to assume that most cuts served to check for plated coins, on occasion cutting a coin might
. For the early Cypriot issues see conveniently Price and Waggoner (: –) and Kagan (); for the Phoenician issues Elayi and Elayi (); for the coinage of Samaria, Judea, and Philistia Hendin (: –) remains the most succinct treatment. For preMacedonian minting in Egypt see van Alfen (a). e imitation of Athenian coins in the rst quarter of the fourth century may have been minted specically to pay foreign mercenaries (cf. Kroll : and Diodorus .), but this is a hypothesis that stands in need of further investigation. . Babelon (: –) discusses a number of interpretations of the cuts, including the suggestion that they were meant to demonetize the coins (which, indeed, is what cutting a coin in Athens signaled: SEG . = Stroud , lns. –), and posits that they served the opposite function in Persian-held lands: they were marks placed on the coins by authorities monetizing coins for circulation. Babelon's suggestion was not followed by Newell (: ) or Dressel and Regling (: –), for example, who retained the official context but changed the purpose: a test for bronze cores. Today, the assumption remains that these cuts were meant as tests, but perhaps more in a private than official context; see Elayi and Elayi (: ), for example. . See also Elayi and Elayi (: ) for the relatively few plated coins noted in their
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also have served the secondary function of marking the coin for other validating or accounting purposes; in some cases there are multiple cuts that exhibit clear patterning in terms of where they appear on the coins (van Alfen a: –). Also, would more than one cut be necessary to test the coin? What these cuts demonstrate, however, is that a substantial proportion of the coins circulating in Egypt (and the Levant) were subjected to a serious form of control that must have in some cases affected their acceptability. Because there are no overarching patterns that emerge vis-à-vis the cut coins within each time period or region, and because the tools required were not specialized, it is likely that this form of control was ad hoc and personal, performed more oen by private individuals than by state officials. If so, we may ask whether cutting was a habit that developed in reaction to coinage, or a form of control that existed before the rst coins appeared in the Near East. Hoard evidence from Tel Miqne-Ekron ( km southwest of Jerusalem) and Nûsh-i Jân ( km northwest of Malayir in Iran), for example, shows that the practice predated the arrival of coinage in the Near East by nearly a century, if not more. Of the six Hacksilber hoards found in excavations at Tel Miqne-Ekron, all of which predate the destruction of the city in , two of the hoards contain numerous pieces of Hacksilber, approximately stater-sized, bearing chisel cuts similar to those found on later coins (Gitin and Golani : pls. ., ., and .). Likewise, the late seventh-century Hacksilber hoard from Nûsh-i Jân also contains cut pieces (Bivar : pl. II, nos. B, B, B, B, B; pl IIIa, no. B). As on the coins, the cuts vary in depth and multiple cuts are found on an occasional piece. It may have been that some of these deeper cuts served as score lines on a complete ingot to indicate where one could readily make equal divisions (cf. Zournatzi : n. ). But it is clear that not all the cuts could have served this purpose, especially those multiple cuts forming acute angles, and so we can assume that these cuts served some type of control purpose. Whatever the specic purpose of these cuts (tests for plated Hacksilber or ingots?),¹⁶ they show that personal habits of close control and scrutiny over the supply of silver in circulation
extensive study of Near Eastern hoards. e question of whether or not these plated coins were always counterfeits is complicated by what seem to be officially produced plated coins that appeared from time to time, usually when a recognized coin producer was under duress, as the Athenians were in / , when they produced a series of plated tetradrachms and drachms. For more on these coins and the problems of plated coins in general see van Alfen (forthcoming). . Note also the cuts on ingots nos. – here. e following Persian-period Levantine and Egyptian hoards also contain ingots or Hacksilber with cuts: IGCH , , , , , , , ; CH .; Psterer (); Kroll (). From a Hacksilber and coin hoard found in Achaemenid Babylonia comes a portion of a bar ingot with cuts
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were already rmly in place long before the rst coin arrived in the Near East. Under the mechanisms of this tradition of control, coins were treated no differently than other pieces of silver in circulation. Elements of this tradition of control were carried over to a new form of marking coins in the fourth century: countermarking.¹⁷ As with the cuts, it is agreed that the countermarks served as a form of control, but just what the nature of that control was, and who was responsible for it, are matters that are far from settled.¹⁸ One of two theories are generally provided to explain these oen elaborate marks: ) private bankers, merchants, or other concerned individuals stamped the coins in order to mark them as having good weight and metal and thus as acceptable to themselves and those with whom they conducted business; ) states or other authorities marked coins in order to indicate their currency within recognized physical boundaries, such as a market, festival, or polis at large. States might also have marked coins to indicate their quality.¹⁹ For most countermarks there is little hope of delineating official versus private use, or for disentangling the actualities of their use. Why this particular form of control was comparatively slow to develop in the Near East, particularly in Egypt, is likely to be explained by the comparatively slow acceptance of coins as coins (see below). Unlike simple cuts, countermarks share a conceptual link with the types (or designs) that appear on coins; both incorporate specic designs that communicate notions of authenticity or authority.²⁰ us countermarks would likely only function as intended in an environment where coins were recognized and used as coins, rather than simply as bullion. But, again, what should be noted here is the public and, more importantly, private intent to control and mark the money supply, and the continuation of this practice in various guises in the Near East from at least the seventh century onward. Still more difficult to explain, however, is the function of the ingots; the issues at stake are more complex than might seem at rst. eir size, weight, and monetary value immediately suggest that the ingots were intended primarily for storing large amounts of silver in a convenient form, which could at some moment of need
on one face that form an elaborate design (Reade , no. ). Also contemporary are an Archaic hoard from Asia Minor with cut pieces (Kim ), and two Archaic hoards from the West Greek world, the Silenus hoard (Arnold-Biucchi et al. ) and the Taranto hoard (IGCH ). . As noted above countermarking coins in the Near East seems to have begun in the fourth century, an observation also noted by Elayi and Elayi (: ) in their study of Near Eastern hoards. . See Le Rider () and Elayi and Elayi (: chp. VII). . De Callataÿ (: –) argues for the use of countermarks to denote metal quality by the satrapal authority in late fourth-century Cilicia. . On the semiotics and functions of coin types, and by extension countermarks, see Seaford (: –).
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be cut into smaller pieces for transactions (cf. Herodotus ..). Even so, their appearance in currency (rather than “silversmith’s”)²¹ hoards also suggests that the ingots themselves, as well as their fragments, were used in transactions (Bivar , ; Le Rider : –). ese two functions, transactional and storage, are not mutually exclusive, since, on a much smaller scale, that is exactly how coins operate. e interpretive problem with most ingots in Near Eastern hoards is what their apparent lack of standardization implies about their function. In general, we would expect those who produced silver, e.g., the leaseholders at the Laurion mines in Attica, to ship their nal product in bulk in ingot form. As with most other commodities, we would expect some fairly exacting standardization of the bulk measure, as, for example, was the case with amphorae of wine or oil (Figueira : ch. ). We might also expect those who received massive amounts of silver in coins—a state receiving taxes for example—to melt and reshape some of this bulk metal into a form, like large ingots, more easily managed from a physical as well as an accounting standpoint. Again, for the sake of convenience and management, we would expect a high degree of standardization. Whatever the source of the metal might have been (mines, taxes, or booty), this is precisely what we nd in the case of the -plus silver ingots (phthoides) stored in the Parthenon on the Athenian acropolis in / .²² e ideal mark for all -plus ingots was drachmas ( g), and within this lot the greatest discrepancy from this mark was less than , demonstrating not just how much care there was in adhering to the ideal, but also that such exactitude was possible with bulk silver.²³ Note too that the gure chosen as the mark ( drachmas) has a certain logic: drachms, or minas, is one-h a talent, and as such would be much easier to physically move about than an ingot weighing a full talent (c. kg); drachmas is also a gure that is easily divisible by , , and , and thus simple to work within the Athenian denominational system. Rather surprisingly and signicantly, the same precision in marks or logic is rarely seen with complete ingots (or even dumps) found in Levantine or Egyptian hoards, as one can see in Figures –.²⁴ Inexactitude and randomness seem to prevail not only in the weights of fragmentary Hacksilber, where it would be expected,
. Earlier interpretation of bullion hoards tended to label them as “silversmith’s” hoards, thus negating any immediate monetary function for the contents; see Reade (), Kroll (: –), and Le Rider and Verdan (). . See IG II² , lns. –. Harris (: –) provides the Greek text and an English translation; see also the important comments by Kroll (: –). . e lightest recorded ingot weighed drachmas ( g); the heaviest drachmas ( g). . ere are similar problems with the one complete cake ingot from the Selinus hoard, which at . g is close to any expected mark, e.g., one mina; see Arnold-Biucchi et al. (: , “E”).
“Aryandic” Silver and Bullion Use
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but even in the weights of complete ingots and dumps. In a number of cases the weight of an ingot seems to be “within range” of a particular mark, but this is a far cry from the < level of precision we noted earlier.²⁵ Among the complete Levantine and Egyptian ingots, the greatest precision in adherence to a mark might, in fact, be found in the new ANS ingot hoard. e largest ingot (no. ) with a weight of . g is within of the weight of three minas, if the standard used was the Babylonian mina of . g.²⁶ Ingot no. (. g), when complete, might have weighed one Babylonian mina, while no. (. g) is within of shekels, or two-thirds a Babylonian mina. While the numbers are encouraging, these three ingots are not standardized in the strictest sense. e three different weights, which are not easily intermeshed,²⁷ suggest that the ingots in this hoard exhibit the same randomness seen in the weights of the other Levantine and Egyptian ingots and not the complete standardization of the Parthenon ingots. e contrast is indicative of differences in context, process, and function of these two sets of ingots from Athens and somewhere in Egypt. Good weight, of course, is only one concern when using precious metals in transactions; another important concern is metal quality. is was true even in the case of economies using bullion; the determination of metal quality, for example, was of prime importance in (Neo-)Mesopotamian monetary transactions. Different grades of silver were recognized: silver above purity was to be used in silverwork; – purity was for monetary transactions, and that below was unt for either (Reade : ; Joannes ; Powell ; Le Rider : –). Among the Persian king Darius’ (– ) reforms (see Bivar )
. For further comments on the inexactitude of ingot weights see Kraay and Moorey (: –) and Bivar (: –). Also see Le Rider (: –) for more general comments on ingot weights. One possible explanation for such inexactitude is that we are expecting the ingots to weigh sensible fractions or multiples of certain weights, like a mina, and our expectations are misguiding us. As discussed below, each ingot might have been purpose made for a specic transaction and so its weight reects, with reasonable precision, some unexpected gure, e.g., drachmas. . We are not entirely certain what standards were used in what parts of the Persian Empire, and whether these standards underwent changes from time to time. One of the most common Near Eastern standards was the Babylonian, which used a mina of c. g (or g) divided into shekels of c. . g (or . g). ere is some question as to whether this standard was used in Egypt, and whether it underwent modication at some point (Bivar : –). . No. is two-thirds the ideal weight of no. , which is one-third the weight of no. . While division by thirds is possible throughout, the relationship between no. and no. cannot be reconciled is a neat fashion, especially when the weights of the ingots are rendered in shekels: no. = shekels; no. (presumably when complete) = shekels; no. = shekels.
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were the use of exceptionally pure precious metals—close to —for monetary and other functions; the reasons for this “neness phenomenon” (Powell : ) are not clear, although one possibility, as suggested by Antigoni Zournatzi () was simply control. Using as a starting point Herodotus .., a passage that describes the Persians creating ingots using silver income from tribute,²⁸ Zournatzi argues that the intent of melting and reforming the silver was not necessarily to create standardized ingots for the sake of storage, but to ensure that all the metal stored in the treasury would be of the same high quality. e only way that the treasury could be assured of consistency in the quality of the vast quantities of silver derived from so many sources was to assay and rene the metal systematically, processes that required the silver to be melted rst. At the state level standardizing both the alloy and form of the metal makes good sense for the sake of ease in handling and accounting, as suggested already in the case of the Parthenon ingots. But once the silver trickled down through various transactions to come into the hands of the wider public as pieces cut off of these larger ingots (cf. Herodotus ..), standardized form would likely not continue be as great a concern as the alloy. In fact, within the Egyptian context, we have already seen one possible manifestation of this concern at the personal level: the cuts on the Hacksilber, ingots, and coins. Further evidence for the control over alloy quality in transactions between individuals can be found in the Aramaic papyri from the h-century Elephantine military colony in upper Egypt.²⁹ Of the numerous contracts that exist, contracts drawn up by members of the community for a variety of purposes, many contain a formula that species the terms of the monetary penalty should the contract be breached. For example, from September we have an agreement that deals with the building of a wall; the penalty clause reads (TAD B..): “If I restrain you, I shall give you silver, karsh by the stone weights of the king, pure silver...” (trans. Porten).³⁰ e formula denotes rst the type of metal, secondly its weight, and thirdly the quality of the
. Τοῦτον τὸν φόρον θησαυρίζει βασιλεὺς τρόπῳ τοιῷδε ές πίθους κεραµίνους τήξας καταχέει. πλήσας δέ τὸ ἄγγος περιαιρέει τὸν κέραµον. ἐπεὰν δὲ δεηθῇ χρηµάτων κατακόπτει τοσοῦτο ὅσου ἂν ἑκάστοτε δέηται. (“e Persian King stores the tribute in this manner: melting it down he pours it into ceramic vessels, and once the vessels are full he breaks away the surrounding earthenware; whenever he needs money, he coins (from these ingots) however much is necessary.”) . Around Jewish mercenaries employed by Darius settled at Elephantine, near Aswan in upper Egypt. Many records of the colony remain in the form of contracts, letters, and lists, written in Aramaic c. – ; the corpus has been published in the TAD series, while commentary for many of the documents can be found in Porten ( and ). Less fully studied are papyri of roughly the same date written in demotic. . ףירצ ףסכ אכלמ \/\// ןשרכ ףסכ ךל ךתנא ךתילכ ןה
“Aryandic” Silver and Bullion Use
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alloy. Elsewhere, we nd as the third element (which is here “ ,ףירצ ףסכpure silver”) variations of the phrase ) אתרשץ // רq(uarters) to (the) ).³¹ Bezalel Porten, the major recent commentator on these documents, reads this phrase and its variations as an attempt to bring the weight of the Persian karsh in line with the weight of ten Egyptian shekels.³² ere are problems with this interpretation, however. First there is little reason to believe in the existence of this “Egyptian” shekel of c. . g.³³ Second, if this Egyptian shekel were the intended unit of account in these contracts, there would be no reason to state the penalty in Persian terms and then provide an awkward method of conversion into the Egyptian unit. e nature of contracts is to clarify, not obfuscate. It would make much better sense to interpret “ q(uarters) to (the) ” as a statement of alloy quality, which, in fact, is how other commentators saw it (Cowley : xxx; Kraeling : –; Naster ). Two-quarters of a shekel then indicates the maximum allowable amount of impurities in a mass of silver weighing shekels, or one karsh; thus the phrase denotes silver pure. If this interpretation is correct, it provides further evidence that those using silver in h-century Egypt were highly concerned about silver quality. Moreover, it agrees well with the contractual formula noted above, and it also allows us to identify other silver grades in use. In a loan agreement dated c. (TAD .), we nd the usual weightquality formula (here the weight standard is the “stones of Ptah” rather than the “stones of the King”), but this time the alloy quality is -) ל \ שsh(ekel) to the ), or pure.³⁴ We can identify therefore at least two different grades of silver in monetary use in h-century Egypt: and neness. As noted above, Near
. ese are, with their TAD citations: a) ) אתרשץ // רq(uarters) to (the) ten): B.: ; B.:, ; .:; b) \ ) שרכל // רq(uarters) to karsh): B.:; .:; .:; .:; c) ( אתרשץל זוזzuz to the ten): B.:; .:; .:; d) -( ל זוזzuz to (the) ): B.:; e) \ ( שרכלzuz to karsh): B.:; .:. A zuz was / a shekel; ten shekels equaled a karsh. . Porten (: , n. ): “It probably meant that a half shekel (= a zuz) had to be added to every Persian karsh (= shekels) to bring its weight of . g up to the weight of . g (= x . g, the weight of the Egyptian shekel).” . Porten (: –) seems to have devised the existence of the “Egyptian” shekel from Aramaic texts (e.g., TAD B.:; A.:; B.:; .:) where the Athenian tetradrachm is said to be the equivalent of two shekels. Wrongly assuming the tetradrachm standard to be . g, Porten arrives at an “Egyptian” shekel of . g (i.e., . g ÷ ). e actual Athenian standard is closer to . g; also the half gram difference between . g (a shekel of . g x ) and . g was likely overlooked in most transactions because of the convenience factor of having a coin so near a useful weight. Why the sttr (stater) in these texts must be the Athenian tetradrachm and no other coins is explained by Naster (). . Porten (: , n. ) again sees this as an attempt to reconcile two weights systems: “To bring the weight of the lighter Persian karsh = shekels in line with that of the Ptah deben = kite ( kite = . g), one Ptah shekel was added for each karsh.”
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Eastern parallels for two and even three recognized grades of (monetary) silver are not lacking, making the use of multiple grades of silver in Egypt an acceptable notion.³⁵ A third Egyptian grade is seemingly lurking in the phrase ( ףירצ ףסכksf tzrip, “pure/rened silver”), which likely refers to a grade of silver of greater purity than or , i.e., one approaching ne (see Naster : ). e Aramaic and Biblical Hebrew verbal root ( ףרצtzrp) refers primarily to the rening of gold and silver.³⁶ Porten's translation of the term ksf tzrip, “pure silver,” rightly carries the connotation that the silver specied has been rened ( ,ףירצtzrip) beyond what one might expect of “normal” silver ( ,ףסכksf), presumably the other two grades. In the documents that we have, however, all but one of the references to ksf tzrip occur in the contracts written by the scribe Haggai son of Shemiah, which all date to the end of the h century.³⁷ One could argue that the term was idiosyncratic, a personally devised variation for “ q(uarters) to (the) ,” or ne, already an impressively ne grade. But problems in this argument arise from the fact that Haggai used “ q(uarters) to (the) ” from time to time as well (e.g., TAD ..; actually in this case “zuz to karsh”), suggesting that for the scribe and his customers, the two phrases had different meanings. e sole other reference to ksf tzrip is found in the wall agreement noted above (TAD B.., ), which antedates Haggai’s work by nearly seven decades. e considerable time difference suggests that Haggai was using a technical phrase that had been developed at least by the s to refer to a special high grade of silver. Corroboration that a grade of silver of c. existed in early h-century Egypt is found in Herodotus. In book four of the Histories (.), Herodotus relates how the Persian hyparch of Egypt, Aryandes, was put to death as a rebel for attempting to leave a monument of himself (µνηµόσυνον ἑωυτοῦ) comparable to Darius’ highly rened gold coinage; Aryandes’ “monument” was an equally highly rened silver; even in Herodotus’ day (c. ) such silver was called “Aryandic” (καὶ νῦν ἐστὶ ἀργύριον καθαρώτατον τὸ Αρυνδικόν). Commentary on this passage has been extensive, drawing the attention of a range of specialists with different interests
. Signicantly, the Athenian tetradrachm might have counted as a grade in and of itself. In a real estate contract dated December (TAD .), the price paid for the apartment in question was shekels, which is spelled out in the usual formula (lns. –, metal + weight + quality), except that in place of one of the phrases denoting quality we nd: (“( לקש\// /// ירתתס ןוי ףסכin) Ionian silver staters, (plus) one shekel”). One reason Athenian tetradrachms might have been accepted as coins (as here), rather than simply treated as bullion, was their consistently pure silver, which likely was noted by the inhabitants of Egypt at some point in the h century. For the use of “(Ionian) stater” in contemporary demotic documents see Chauveau (). . See Levene and Rothenberg : –. Cf. Jeremiah .–. . TAD .:; .:; .:; .:; also B.:; .:.
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and agendas.³⁸ Oen at the core of the discussions, however, is the question of whether or not Aryandes took his highly rened silver and minted coins out of it. Herodotus does not explicitly say that he did, whereas he does say that Darius minted coins out of his gold (∆αρεῖος µὲν γὰρ χρυσίον καθαρώτατον ἀποψήσας ἐς τὸ δυνατώτατον νόµισµα ἐκόψατο). Christopher Tuplin () has made the most forceful argument to date defending the view that Aryandes minted coins, a view that has been mostly dismissed (see Howgego : ). No Egyptian-made coins have yet been found that can be attributed to him; what evidence we have indicates that minting in Egypt did not begin until the fourth century (van Alfen a). At the conference where the paper was rst presented, Martin Price responded none too favorably to Tuplin’s argument (his comments can be found on pp. – of Tuplin’s published paper), convinced instead that Aryandes had “somehow created very pure silver” and perhaps “passed an edict insisting upon the purity of silver that would be required for taxes and tribute.” Furthermore, whatever “Aryandic silver” Herodotus may have seen was likely in ingot form. Price’s oand yet worthwhile comments require further explication. e monetary use of silver in Egypt predated the arrival of the Achemenids by centuries, if not millennia (Daumas ), but the neness of this silver might not always have been particularly high (Tuplin : ), as was the case in Babylonia (Joannes ). Shortly aer their assumption of power in Egypt, the Achemenids set about reorganizing age-old Egyptian institutions to suit their own needs and purposes, which of course included taxation and Egypt’s annual tribute to the Great King (Brescani ). As we have already seen, in Darius’ reign there was a new-found concern over the neness of the tribute silver received at the central treasury in Persia; this concern might have ltered down to local rulers and satraps. In Egypt, it is not unreasonable to think that Aryandes championed the need for the purest possible grade of silver, by assaying and rening the silver he received as taxes before sending it to Persia, or indeed by simply insisting that any silver turned over to the state be “pure” (καθαρώτατον/ ,)ףירצi.e., close to ne, in order to ease accounting and managing issues. Such a program in turn might have raised the bar of expectation in Egypt generally about what levels of metal quality were permissible in certain types of transactions. In the end, it would make sense that the most highly rened silver in Egypt received the nickname “Aryandic” aer the rst Persian ruler, the one who initiated the new protocols, or who, in Price’s view, issued the edict. Whether or not this silver was the actual cause of the satrap's downfall, as Herodotus insists, is impossible to tell (see Zournatzi : ; Howgego : ).
. See, for example, Tuplin (); Howgego (: –); Kurke (: –); and Zournatzi (: –).
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Since “Aryandic silver” then was simply the highest grade of silver, what form it took made little difference, although we can be condent that it was not minted into coins. e lack of numismatic evidence aside, for Aryandes to have produced coins, presumably for circulation within Egypt, meant that the Egyptians were ready to recognize and use coins as coins. ere is not much evidence from late sixth or early to mid-h-century Egypt to indicate that this was the case. e physical evidence—the hoards—shows a continued healthy use of bullion all through the Persian period, not just at the beginning of the period; they also show how oen coins that found their way to Egypt were chopped to pieces, no less than other pieces of bullion. Both practices, which point to an economic framework different from that operating in the (coin-monetized) Aegean, are virtually unseen in (Classical) Aegean hoards. More telling, however, are the documents from Elephantine. It is only at the end of the h century that the rst hints of a shi to using coins as coins begin to appear, in references to “(Ionian) staters” being used in monetary contexts, where it is clear that the coins are being handled whole as coins (see notes and , and Chauveau ). In texts of slightly earlier date, where we nd an occasional reference to actual payments or possession of silver, the amounts are not easily reconcilable with whole coin weights or denominations. For example, a marriage contract from (TAD B..–) records how the wife brought with her into her husband's house silver weighing two karsh, two shekels, and ve hallurs (= . shekels = . g, with a shekel of . g), a sum not easily reduced to whole Athenian tetradrachms.³⁹ Should this same wife divorce “she shall place upon the balance scale and give to her husband Ananiah silver, shekels, [] q(uarters)...” (trans. Porten),⁴⁰ a penalty couched in traditional language, but likely reecting the still current practice of weighing out bullion in transactions. Pseudo-Aristotle (Oec. ..) further suggests that even well into the fourth century the shi was not complete, that bullion continued to play an important role in the Egyptian economies: he notes that in order to nance his campaign in the Levant, the Egyptian ruler Tachos (/–/ ) raised taxes on the Egyptians and stated that his preference for payment was uncoined (asêmon) silver and gold, which implies that bullion was still readily found in circulation.⁴¹
. It does, however, equal een Aeginetan staters of . g, which are found in some number in Egyptian hoards (e.g., IGCH , , , , , , , , ). But if this lot of silver was comprised solely of een staters, we can be certain this would have been noted in the document. . Ln. : [//] .ר \/// /// ךלקש ףסכ היננצ הלצכל ןתנתו אנזומ לצ כתתAlso note that the sum . shekels (= . g) cannot be reduced to whole Athenian tetradrachms. . It is worth noting that a series of gold staters apparently issued by Tachos’ successor, Nectanebo II (/–) bear hieroglyphs meaning “good gold” (nefer nub); see van
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It is within this context of the widespread use of monetary bullion of differing grades, and concern and control over these grades in different transactions, both at the state and personal level, that the random weights and shapes of the ingots and dumps discussed earlier are best explained. Unlike gold, which can be tested fairly accurately for purity with the aid of a touchstone and needles, no such ready test was available for silver, at least not until late in the fourth century.⁴² e only recourse le to those intent upon knowing the quality of the silver in their possession was re, to melt all or a portion of it for assay.⁴³ ere was not always need for an elaborate assay method like cupellation, however; it was already observed in antiquity that silver of c. – purity bubbled in a particular way when melted (Aristotle Problemata b). Observers would have surely noted how silver of the same purity forms blisters and extrusions on the surface of the metal as it cools (Conophagos et al. : –). Pliny (HN .) also mentions a rudimentary test for silver purity using re that was likely known long before his time (rst century AD): melted silver that remains perfectly white is of good quality, if it turns red it is of the next quality, but if it turns black it is no good.⁴⁴ With access to a hot re (hotter than the ˚C melting point of silver) and something to melt the silver in or on, anyone could have gained a reasonable understanding of the purity of a questionable piece of silver; any lot of miscellaneous pieces of Hacksilber, perhaps a lot that formed a single payment for an item or service, could have also been quickly melted and tested together. e result of so many melts and tests, especially when removed from the context of state control and standardization,
Alfen (a: –). It may be inferred that even when these coins were minted in the mid-fourth century the bullion-oriented concern for metal quality still prevailed to such an extent that for these coins to be accepted they had to carry a statement about their quality. . eophrastus (De lapidibus ) claims that a recently discovered (εὑρῆσθαι...νῠν, i.e., end of the fourth century) stone was capable of discovering a grain (κριθή, . g) of impurities within gold or silver stater; for commentary see Bogaert (: –). . In , for example, the Romans tested the rst installment of talents of the , talents Carthaginian indemnity payment by re and found it to have a purity of only : Carthaginienses eo anno argentum in stipendium impositum primum Romam aduexerunt. Id quia probum non esse quaestores renuntiaverunt experientibusque pars quarta decocta erat, pecunia Romae mutual sumpta intertrimentum argentii expleuerunt (Livy ..). Also note eognis –, which dates a few centuries earlier: ἐν πυρὶ µὲν χρυσόν τε καὶ ἄργυρον ἴδρεϚ ἄνδρεϚ/ γινώσκουσʹ (“in re clever men come to know gold and silver”). . Vatillis ferries candentibus ramento inposito, quod candidum permaneat, probatur; proxima bonitas rufo, nulla nigro. Pliny, of course, mentions the use of silver shavings and a red hot spatula to perform the test. A couple of centuries later, in a third-century Egyptian alchemical text, a similar test is mentioned, but is more expansive in its description than Pliny: “Heat the silver or melt it, as with gold; and if it remains white and brilliant, it is pure and not false; if it appears black, it contains some lead; if it appears hard and yellow, it con-
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would be precisely what we see in the hoard record: dumps and ingots of random sizes and weights. is is not to say that all transactions required that silver be tested in this way. at is clear enough in the Elephantine documents, where we hear of transactions taking place where no such tests occurred or were required; transactional efficiency in places like markets would have necessitated some degree of condence in the quality of the smaller pieces of Hacksilber (and coins?) in rapid circulation. Only when there was a stipulated need for a veried grade of metal, like tax or contractual payments, or in cases where doubt prevailed, would the silver be subjected to re. It is not too difficult to see then how this level of personal control would have caused constant ux in the physical shape of the money supply and so imparted such a distinctive character to Egyptian and more broadly Near Eastern hoards of the Persian period. Before returning to the new ANS ingot hoard, there are a few nal observations to make about the Egyptian and Levantine hoards in general. A glance at Figures – shows that by far the greatest proportion of both complete and incomplete ingots and dumps have weights below g. e proportions continue to stay fairly high below g, but drop off below g, except in the case of fragmentary pieces in the Levant, where of that group falls below g. For Egypt the bulk of the bullion money supply, at least as far as we can tell from the hoards we have, had weights that were concentrated between and g. Conversely, in the Levant, bullion weights were concentrated between and g. How suggestive these gures might be regarding prices and small-scale transactions depends ultimately on the overall quality of the hoard evidence, which is not high. Nevertheless, the preponderance of lower-weight pieces suggests that bullion silver was used extensively in smaller, daily transactions throughout the Persian period.⁴⁵ At the other end of the spectrum, a signicant number of large ingots are also found in the hoards (see Figures –). e penalties in the Aramaic contracts are oen quite steep, from to karsh (c. g to g silver), designed obviously to keep the contractors in line. We cannot know how oen contracts were broken and penalties paid, but in such cases a large ingot, one perhaps formed on the
tains some copper” (Leyden Papyrus .). . Note Reade’s (: ) comments about the contents of the h-century Babylonian hoard: “If then the content of this hoard reect the owner’s normal practice, he could have carried out most of his ordinary transactions with ‘small change’ (pieces under two shekels), of which he had / shekels’ worth in his hoard. He had an additional / shekels’ worth in pieces weighing over two but less than ten shekels...” Back in Egypt, various marriage contracts from Elephantine list dowry items along with their values in silver, which if they correlate to actual prices would reect a real need for small change. See, for example, TAD B.. ( ), which lists a mirror worth / hallurs (. shekels, or c. g); it also lists a woolen garment worth shekels (. g). . is is well illustrated by a customs account (TAD C.) dated that records the
“Aryandic” Silver and Bullion Use
29
spot by melting pieces of Hacksilber, might have changed hands. In one document (TAD A.) dating to the last decade of the h century, we hear how the leaders of the Elephantine community were ned shekels (c. g) of silver; again payment might have been made using large ingots. In mid-h-century Egypt, the use of silver as money was extensive, but the use of coins as coins was not. e land had no natural silver resources so the Egyptians were compelled to draw the metal in from outside through trade and port taxes.⁴⁶ Since the Egyptians had no coinage of their own until well into the fourth century, they had no need throughout most of the Persian period to subsequently melt and re-coin the incoming silver; thus Greek and Levantine coins circulated freely, sometimes for decades, treated mostly as bullion, occasionally as coins. At some point in the second half of the h century, Athenian tetradrachms began to acquire a special status, likely because of their good metal and weight, but also perhaps because the owls simply outnumbered all other coin types combined in Egyptian circulation. Acceptance of Athenian (and other?) coins as coins gradually became more commonplace and so in some areas the Egyptians began to align themselves functionally with their coin-using silver suppliers in the Aegean and elsewhere. Nothing about the new ANS hoard changes this picture, although it is clear that the special status of Athenian coinage was not yet fully developed when the hoard closed; Athenian coins nos. – are fragmented, and no. is partially melted. Again, it is the ingots that make the hoard signicant. Ingots and Hacksilber have, of course, been found in numerous Persian period Egyptian hoards, but none of the bullion pieces yet recorded are of the size and weight of the pieces from this hoard (see Figures –); in fact our . g specimen (no. ) is the largest intact cake ingot known from any sixth through fourth century hoard anywhere. Very large ingots, or large fragments from still larger ingots, are known from contemporary Levantine and Western Greek hoards,⁴⁷ but again nothing comparable has yet been recorded from Egypt. e deep cuts on the two smaller ingots (nos. –), indicative of a form of control within an exchange context, surely mean that these ingots had been used as money in a transaction. If, as argued above, ingots were sometimes produced by private parties to pay specic
taxes in gold and silver paid by Greek and Phoenician ships at some unnamed Egyptian port; for a summary see Yardeni (), and for an extensive commentary see Briant and Descat (). . See especially the “Antilebanon” hoard (CH .) which contained a monster , g bar ingot; the Taranto hoard (IGCH ) also contained large fragments of ingots that must have weighed, when complete, several thousand grams. . Both the Taranto (IGCH ) and Silenus (Arnold-Biucchi et al. ) hoards con-
C
30
P G. A
debts, it could well be that each of these ingots had changed hands at least once before the cuts were made. Having le the possession of the original recipients, who may have witnessed the production of the ingots and so knew their quality, they came into the possession of others who did not know their quality, who accepted the ingots only aer cutting into them. e lack of standardization among these three pieces and lack of official marks both suggest private production and use rather than payments emanating from the satrapal treasury.⁴⁸ e signicance of these three ingots then lies in the evidence they provide for bullion transactions of a considerable scale existing outside of the official exchequer.
A
I thank John Kroll, Emily Mackil, and Oliver Hoover for their comments on earlier dras of the paper, and Jonathan Kagan and Arnold-Peter Weiss for their assistance. All shortcomings, of course, remain my own.
F –: I H
Egypt: complete ingots
12 10 8
number
6 4 2 0
1
2
4
8
16 32
64 128 256 512 1024 2048
weight in grams
tained ingots with stamps that mimic known coin types, which may indicate the hand of an authority in their manufacture or verication. From the earlier “Black Sea” hoard (CH .) came a cuneiform-inscribed ingot or sheet fragment reading “Made in the palace of Darius the King;” see Kraay and Moorey (: no. ).
“Aryandic” Silver and Bullion Use
Egypt: ingot fragments, dumps, Hacksilber
20
31
15
number
10
5
0
1
2
4
8
16
32
64
128 256 512 1024 2048
weight in grams
Levant: complete ingots
15
12
number
9
6
3
0
1
2
4
8
16
32
64
128
256
512 1024 2048
weight in grams
32
25
P G. A
Levant: ingot fragments, dumps, Hacksilber
20
15
number
10
5
0
1
2
4
8
16
32
64
128
256
512 1024 2048
weight in grams
T –: H E
e hoard evidence presented here is divided rst geographically—Cilicia, the Levant, and Egypt—and second chronologically into the Archaic (c. – ) and Classical (-c. ) periods. No Archaic hoards from Cilicia have been published. Furthermore, none of the contemporary hoards from Cyprus (IGCH –; CH .; .; .; .) contains coins validated in any fashion, nor do they contain ingots or Hacksilber. us there are no lists for Archaic Cilicia or for Cyprus. e hoards considered are listed under “Reference” in rough chronological order with an abbreviated designation. Any four-digit number (e.g., ) refers to hoards found in IGCH; thus “” is IGCH . All other gures, e.g., “.,” refer to hoards listed in one of the nine volumes of CH; “.” therefore is CH volume , hoard no. . An occasional hoard not listed in either IGCH or CH is noted: “But. ” = Buttrey (), Karanis; “Kr. ” = Kroll (); “Pf. ” = Pster (); “v. A. a” = van Alfen (), Nahman’s hoard; “v. A. b” = van Alfen (), Endicott’s hoard; “v. A. a” = van Alfen (); “v. A. b” = the hoard under consideration in this article. Under the titles “cut coins,” “countermarked coins,” “fragmented coins,” and “plated coins,” the percentage given represents a proportion of the total number of coins found in the hoard. A “?” indicates that there are examples in the hoard but their proportion or number is not known. e total number of complete ingots and dumps is listed under their respective heading; all other incomplete ingots, Hacksilber, and jewelry pieces are under “Total no. misc. Hacksilber.”
Table . Cilicia Countermarked Fragmented Plated coins coins coins Total no. complete ingots Total no. complete dumps Total no. misc. Hacksilber
Reference Total no. of coins
Cut coins
+
?
+
+
.
+
.
+
.
+
.
+
.
+
“Aryandic” Silver and Bullion Use
+
.
+
+
.
33
34
Table . Cilicia Continued Countermarked Fragmented coins coins Plated coins Total no. complete ingots Total no. complete dumps Total no. misc. Hacksilber
Reference Total no. of coins
Cut coins
.
+
.
.
+
+
.
.
+
.
P G. A
.
+
.
+
+
.
+
.
.
Table . Archaic Levant Countermarked Fragmented Plated coins coins coins
Reference Total no. of coins
Cut coins
Total no. complete ingots
Total no. complete dumps
Total no. misc. Hacksilber
+
“Aryandic” Silver and Bullion Use
Kagan
35
36
Table . Classical Levant Countermarked Fragmented Plated coins coins coins
Reference Total no. of coins
Cut coins
Total no. complete ingots
Total no. complete dumps
Total no. misc. Hacksilber
.
.
+
?
.
.
+
.
+
.
+
P G. A
Pf.
?
.
.
+
Table . Classical Levant Continued Countermarked Fragmented Plated coins coins coins Total no. complete ingots Total no. complete dumps Total no. misc. Hacksilber
Reference Total no. of coins
Cut coins
.
+
?
.
+
.
+
.
.
+
.
?
.
“Aryandic” Silver and Bullion Use
.
.
+
.
+
.
.
+
37
.
+
38
Table . Classical Levant Continued Countermarked Fragmented Plated coins coins coins Total no. complete ingots Total no. complete dumps Total no. misc. Hacksilber
Reference Total no. of coins
Cut coins
.
.
.
.
+
.
+
.
.
P G. A
.
?
. ?
.
.
Table . Classical Levant Continued Total no. complete ingots Total no. complete dumps Total no. misc. Hacksilber
Reference Total no. Cut Countermarked Fragmented Plated of coins coins coins coins coins
? ?
+
?
+
v. A. a +
.
?
.
.
“Aryandic” Silver and Bullion Use
.
.
+
.
?
.
.
?
39
40
Table . Archaic Egypt Total no. complete ingots Total no. complete dumps Total no. misc. Hacksilber
Reference Total no. Cut Countermarked Fragmented Plated of coins coins coins coins coins
? ? ? ?
?
?
.
+
P G. A
?
.
?
Table . Classical Egypt Total no. complete ingots
Reference Total no. Cut Countermarked Fragmented Plated of coins coins coins coins coins
Total no. complete dumps
Total no. misc. Hacksilber
. ? ? ? ? ? ?
?
Kr.
v.A. b
+
?
“Aryandic” Silver and Bullion Use
+
?
.
? ?
v.A. a
+
v.A. b
+
But.
.
41
42
Table . Classical Egypt Continued Total no. complete ingots Total no. complete dumps Total no. misc. Hacksilber
Reference Total no. Cut Countermarked Fragmented Plated of coins coins coins coins coins
+
+
P G. A
+
“Aryandic” Silver and Bullion Use
43
R
Arnold-Biucchi, C., L. Beer-Tobey, and N.M. Waggoner. . A Greek archaic silver hoard from Silenus. American Numismatic Society Museum Notes : –. Babelon, E. . Traité des monnaies grecques et romaines, vol. I. Paris: Ernst Leroux. Bivar, A. D. H. . A hoard of ingot-currency of the Median period from Nush-i Jan, near Malayir. Iran (): –. ———. . Achaemenid coins, weights and measures. e Cambridge history of Iran. Vol. II. e Median and Achaemenian periods, pp. –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bogaert, R. . L’Essai des monnaies dans l’antiquité. Revue belge de numismatique : –. Brescani, E. . e Persian occupation of Egypt. e Cambridge history of Iran. Vol. II. e Median and Achaemenian periods, pp. –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Briant, P. . From Cyrus to Alexander: a history of the Persian Empire. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. Briant, P. and R. Descat. . Un registre douanier de la satrape d’Égypte a l’époque achemenide. In: N. Grimal and B. Menu, eds. Le commerce en Égypte ancienne (IFAO: Cairo): –. Buttrey, T.V. . Pharaonic imitations of Athenian tetradrachms. In: T. Hackens and R. Weiller, eds., Proceedings of the th International Congress of Numismatics, Berne, September , vol. I, pp. –. Louvain-la-Neuve and Luxembour: Association Internationale des Numismates Professionels. Chauveau, M. . La première mention du statère d’argent en Égypte. Transeuphratène : –. Conophagos, C.E., H. Badecca, and C. Tsaimou. . La technique athenienne de la frappe des monnaies à l’époque classique. Nomismatika Chronika : –. Conophagos, C.E. . Le Laurium antique et la technique grecque de la production de l’argent. Athens: Ekdotiki Hellados. Cowley, A. . Aramaic papyri of the h century B.C. Oxford: Claredon Press. Daumas, F. . Le problème de la monnaie dans l’Égypt antique avant Alexandre. Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome Antiquité .: –. De Callataÿ, F. . Les monnayages ciliciens du premier quart du IVe s. av. J.-C. In: O. Casabonne, ed., Mecanismes et innovations monetaires dans l’Anatolie achemenide: numismatique et histoire: actes de la table ronde internationale d’Istanbul, – mai , pp. –. Paris: Institut français d’études anatoliennes d’Istanbul. ———. . Review: Psterer . Revue Belge de Numismatique : –. Destrooper-Georgiades, A. . Le trésor de Larnaca (IGCH ) réexaminé.
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Report of the Department of Antiquities Cyprus, pp. –. Dressel, H. and K. Regling. . Zwei ägyptische Funde altgriechischer Silbermünzen. Zeitschri für Numismatik : –. Elayi, J. and A.G. Elayi. . Trésors de monnaies phéniciennes et circulation monétaire (Ve-IVe siècle savant J.-C.). Paris: Gabalda. Elayi, J. and A. Lemaire. . Graffiti et contremarques ouest-sémitiques sur les monnaies grecques et proche-orientales. Glaux . Milan: Edizioni ennerre S.r.l. Elayi, J. and J. Sapin. . Beyond the River: New Perspectives on Transeuphratene. Sheffield: JSOT Supplement Series . Figueira, T. . e power of money: coinage and politics in the Athenian Empire. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Gitin, S. and A. Golani. . e Tel Miqne-Ekron silver hoards: e Assyrian and Phoenician connections. In: M. Balmouth, M., ed. Hacksilber to coinage: New insights into the monetary history of the Near East and Greece, pp. –. e American Numismatic Society Numismatic Studies . New York. Harris, D. . e treasures of the Parthenon and Erechtheion. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Hendin, D. . Guide to Biblical coins. th edition. New York: Amphora. Howgego, C. . Ancient history from coins. London: Routledge. Kagan, J. . An archaic Greek coin hoard from the eastern Mediterranean and early Cypriot coinage. Numismatics Chronicle : –. Kim, H. . Archaic coinage as evidence for the use of money. In: A. Meadows and K. Shipton, eds. Money and its uses in the ancient Greek world, pp. –. Oxford. Kraay, C.M. and P.R.S. Moorey. . A Black Sea hoard of the late h century . Numismatic Chronicle : –. Krealing, E.G. . e Brooklyn Museum Aramaic papyri: New documents of the h century B.C. from the Jewish colony at Elephantine. New Haven: Yale University Press. Kroll, J. . e Greek coins. Athenian Agora . Princeton: American School of Classical Studies in Athens. ———. . A small bullion nd from Egypt. American Journal of Numismatics : –. Kurke, L. . Coins, bodies, games, and gold: the politics of meaning in archaic Greece. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Le Rider, G. . Contremarques et surfrappes dans l’Antiquité grecque. In: Numismatique antique: problèmes et methods, pp. –. ———. . La naissance de la monnaie: pratiques monétaires de l’Orient ancien. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Le Rider, G. and S. Verdan. . La trouvaille d’Eretrie: reserve d’un orfevre ou
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45
depot monétaire? Antike Kunst : –. Levene, D. and B. Rothenberg. . Word-smithing: some metallurgical terms in Hebrew and Aramaic. Aramaic Studies .: –. Meshorer, Y. and S. Qedar. . Samarian Coinage. Jersualem. Mørkholm, O. and J. Zahle. . e coinage of Kuprilli: numismatic and archaeological study. Acta Archaeologica (): –. Naster, P. . KARSHA et SHEQEL dans les documents araméens d’Eléphantine (Ve siècle avant J.-C.). Revue Belge de Numismatique : –. Newell, E.T. . A Cilician nd. Numismatic Chronicle : –. Nicolet-Pierre, H. . Autour du décadrachme athenien conservé à Paris. In: Richard Ashton, et al., eds. Studies in Greek numismatics in memory of Martin Jessop Price, pp. –. London: Spink. Psterer, M. . Ein Silberschatz vom Schwarzen Meer: Beobachtungen zum Geldumlauf in Achaimenidenreich. Studia Iranica cahier . Paris: Associations pour l’avancement des etudes iraniennes. Porten, B. . Archives from Elephantine: the life of an ancient Jewish military colony. Berkeley: University of California Press. Porten, B., et al. . The Elephantine papyri in English: three millennia of crosscultural continuity and change. Leiden: Brill. Price, M. and N. Waggoner. . Archaic Greek coinage: the Asyut hoard. London: V.C. Vecchi and Sons. Raymond, D. . Macedonian regal coinage to . Numismatic Notes and Monographs, no. . New York: American Numismatic Society. Reade, J. . A hoard of silver currency from Achaemenid Babylon. Iran : –. Robinson, E.S.G. . Notes on the Larnaca hoard. Numismatic Chronicle : –. Seaford, R. . Money and the early Greek mind: Homer, philosophy, tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sheedy, K. . e Idalion stater found in a tomb in Marion in . Numismatic Chronicle, : –. Singer-Avitz, L. , “Stone and clay objects,” in Herzog, Z., G. Rapp, Jr., O. Negbi, eds., Excavations at Tel Michal, Israel, pp. –. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University. Starr, C.G. . Athenian coinage, – . Oxford: Clarendon Press. Stroud, R.S. . An Athenian Law on Silver Coinage. Hesperia : –. Troxell, H. . Sylloge nummorum Graecorum: e collection of the American Numismatic Society, part . Macedonia II: Alexander I–Philip II. New York: American Numismatic Society. Tuplin, C. . e coinage of Aryandes. In: R. Descat, ed. L’or perse et l’histoire
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greque. Table ronde CNRS, Bordeaux, – Mars . Revue des études anciennes .–: –. Van Alfen, P.G. a. e “owls” from the Syria hoard, with a review of preMacedonia coinage in Egypt. American Journal of Numismatics : –. ———. b. Two unpublished hoards and other owls from Egypt. American Journal of Numismatics : –. ———. a. 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, – . London: Oxbow. ———. b. A new Athenian “owl” and bullion hoard from the Near East. American Journal of Numismatics /: –. Vismara, N. and R. Martini. . Ripostigli con monete della Lycia, di Cyprus e della Phoenicia. Spunti per una discussione. Transeuphratène : –. Yardeni, A. . Maritime trade and royal accountancy in an erased customs account from on the Ahiqar scroll from Elephantine. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research : –. Zournatzi, A. . e processing of gold and silver tax in the Achaemenid empire: Herodotus .. and the archaeological realities. Studia Iranica : –.
Plate 2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
10
12
Ingot Hoard
Plate 3
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20 21 23 Ingot Hoard
22
Plate 4
24 (1:1)
24 (.50x)
Ingot Hoard
Plate 5
25 (.60x)
25 (1:1)
26 (.50x) Ingot Hoard