The Numismatic Project in Ephesos

In the field of research into the ancient world, numismatics plays a particular role, since it deals with objects which on the one hand represent official products of the state or ruler, yet on the other hand have also survived in great quantities. The ›Vienna School‹ of numismatics, decisively characterised by Robert Göbl, has on the one hand indicated new methodological directions in the reconstruction of ancient minting processes, the so-called System Reconstruction, yet on the other hand has also achieved great success which has been internationally recognised in the engagement with pre-modern coins and coin hoards. Decisive in this regard has been the pooling of resources and competences of the Department of Numismatics and Monetary History of the University of Vienna, the Coin Cabinet of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna and the Numismatical Commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

 

Since 2000, the coins found during the current excavation campaigns at Ephesos, as well as discrete find complexes within the framework of the working up of individual monuments, have been scientifically investigated by the Numismatical Commission under the directorship of its chairman, Michael Alram. In contrast to other excavated sites such as Sardis or Antioch on the Orontes, at Ephesos there does not yet exist a unified and detailed overall analysis of the coin finds.

 

The groups of questions concerning the analysis of the coins are multifarious. From a purely technical viewpoint, the compilation and determination of all new coin finds as well as selected older pieces can be mentioned. A long-term goal, within the framework of comprehensive special projects with their own financing, is the creation of a corpus of Ephesian coin finds. First, coins are important in the total aspect: differing deposits of coins reflect differing intensities of economic usage of individual areas, whereby precisely here the combining of the evidence with other data such as, for example, the ceramic evidence is of crucial importance, in particular for the Hellenistic copper coins from Ephesos which are in part not easily datable based on purely numismatic criteria. Here it must be emphasised that the interpretation of coin finds, with the goal of clarifying economic and social history, must pay attention to other sites in addition to Ephesos; and that, furthermore, the coin finds cannot be treated without fundamental understanding of the minting system. Within the framework of the numismatic work at Ephesos, carried out to date by the Numismatical Commission, a databank of coins has been created which (state in autumn 2010) contains over 15,000 ancient and early medieval coins from Ephesos itself, as well as from selected other sites in the eastern Mediterranean region. In the context of the total Ephesian numismatic finds, then, the ›numismatic fingerprint‹ of individual excavated locations can be worked out. Thus, for example, the analysis of the inventory of coins from the Curetes Street, viewed synoptically with the preliminary total spectrum of the finds of Ephesian coins from the Early Byzantine period, has provided significant information regarding the civic history of Ephesos in the 7th century A.D.

 

A few concrete examples of future emphases in the work may be mentioned now: after new excavations in Ephesos and Sardis, the amount of early electron coins, datable based on their find context, has multiplied. Therefore an exceptional starting point has been created for a synoptic and interdisciplinary study, in which both the numismatic as well as the archaeological aspects should be investigated and discussed by specialists. For the Augustan period, a rich collection of copper coins is available, naming the civic officials. This transitional phase from the late Hellenistic to the early Imperial period, within which the reign of Augustus is of crucial significance, requires extensive analysis from a numismatic perspective; here the epigraphic evidence is of great importance. For the Imperial-period local minting from Ephesos, the corpus prepared by Stefan Karwiese is currently in press; thus, soon a new foundation for future work will be available. With regard to the coin finds of the 5th century A.D. one can speak of a fully-fledged revolution: more sophisticated excavation techniques on the one hand, and improved knowledge of the minting system on the other, allow today for the first time that a history of the local currency in the 5th century can be written. The enormous degree of monetary transactions rested solely on minute copper coins, which in the extensive older excavations were either not found at all, or only in very small numbers. Newer excavations, however, have shown precisely in recent years in Ephesos, that this type of coin actually belongs to the numerically strongest group of coins. In addition, the System Reconstruction of these coins enables a far better understanding of dating and, above all, of the attribution to mints, a question of far-reaching importance regarding economic and administrative history.

 

 

 

Financing

Numismatical Commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences

OeAI

 

 

Bibliography

N. Schindel, Die Fundmünzen von der Kuretenstraße 2005 und 2006. Numismatische und historische Auswertung, in: S. Ladstätter (Hrsg.), Neue Forschungen zur Kuretenstraße von Ephesos. Akten des Symposions für Hilke Thür vom 13. Dezember 2006 an der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, DenkschrWIen 382 = AForsch 15 (Wien 2009) 171–245.

 

 

Contact

Michael Alram

Austrian Academy of Sciences

Numismatical Commission

Postgasse 7

A-1010 Vienna

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