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The ongoing excavation of an ancient Greek city in western Turkey has revealed artefacts and archaeological remains dating back to the 5th century BC – including a pot filled with an undisclosed number of valuable gold coins that had been hidden for more than 2,000 years.
Researchers discovered the hideout in Notion, an 80-acre fortified town that has been occupied since ca. sixth century BC to first century AD. Found buried – probably intentionally – beneath the floor of a 5th-century BC courtyard house, the fortune could tell the story of an ancient mercenary soldier during those times of conflict, according to one Press release from the University of Michigan.
“The discovery of such a valuable find in a controlled archaeological excavation is very rare,” excavation leader Dr. Christopher Ratté, professor of ancient Mediterranean art and archeology at the University of Michigan and director of the Notion Archaeological Project, said in the release.
“No one ever buries a hoard of coins, especially precious metal coins, without the intention of retrieving them. Therefore, only the gravest misfortune can explain the preservation of such a treasure.”
The website it includes the typical features of an ancient Greek city, such as a theater, temples, housing and a market. The notion remained largely untouched and unexplored for thousands of years until about a decade ago, when Ratté and a team of researchers began the process of aerially surveying and mapping the visible remains of the city found in the Hellenistic era (323 BC to 30 BC). .
But when researchers began their excavation in 2022, with the aim of studying the remains not visible above ground, they made an exciting discovery: beneath the foundation of a large Hellenistic-era courtyard house were the remains of an older house with ceramic fragments inside. walls dating back to the 5th century BC, according to the statement. The researchers then found the hoard of coins buried under the floor of the old house.
The artifacts tell the story of those who resided in the city, not only during the period between the reign of Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire, but also hundreds of years before, when tension was high between Greek civilization and the Persian Empire. .
Persian darics for a soldier
The newly discovered coins date from the reign of the Persian Empire (6th century BC to about 330 BC) and are known as Persian darics after the archer kneeling in front of the coin representing Persian king Darius. Like most ancient coins from the 6th to 4th centuries BC, this coin is undated, posing a challenge to researchers looking to pinpoint when it was produced, said Dr. Peter van Alfen, chief curator of the American Numismatic Society, who does not was part of the excavation.
“Several huge daric hoards have been found in the past, totaling thousands of coins, but these were not found by archaeologists, so the coins were scattered and the context of the hoard (was) lost forever,” van Alfen said in an email. “The fact that this Daric treasure was found in a controlled archaeological excavation is rare. … The (archaeological) context of this hoard could provide an absolute dating for certain types of darics.”
During the roughly 200 years that the coins were in production, they underwent small stylistic changes that researchers tried to place in chronological order, Ratté said. The discovery of coins together with external dating evidence allows scientists to understand how this coin had a high intrinsic value for the time.
It’s unclear what exactly the valuable currency was used for – it was assumed to be a way to pay mercenaries, van Alfen said. One gold coin would be equivalent to a month’s salary for a mercenary soldier, according to the University of Michigan. Silver coins were mostly used for daily expenses, such as going to the store. Those were known as Persian silver sigloi20 of which would be equivalent to a gold coin.
“The fact that this treasure was found in a house suggests that whatever the intended purpose of those who produced darics, they were being used, in this case, as a store of wealth,” said van Alfen. Due to the high value of gold coins, “it was much more efficient to store wealth in gold coins than in silver,” he added.
As for why the owner never returned to retrieve the gold, Ratté proposed that this could be indicative of the Notion’s place as a border between Greek civilization and the Persian Empire during centuries of conflict. Several scenarios could have led to the abandonment of the coins, he suggested, including one in 427 BC when an Athenian general attacked and massacred a group of mercenaries heading to Persia.
Another confrontation of this type occurred during the end of the 5th century BC, when the Spartan navy defeated the Athenians in a battle and they had to evacuate the city, he added.
It is also possible that the hiding place belonged to some prosperous citizen who hopes to one day live like a king, like “the enormously wealthy Pythius (an ancient Greek architect) did those who had around 4 million darics in their coffers as told by Herodotus,” said van Alfen.
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