A small find of silver bullion from Egypt / John H. Kroll

/';-=09)(8*=-0/'] This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:08 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CONTENTS John H. Kroll. A small findof silverbullionfromEgypt 1 Elena Stolyarik. Scythians in the West Pontic area: new numismaticevidence 21 Hélène Guiraud and James H. Schwartz. Engraved gems in the collectionof the AmericanNumismaticSociety III : male deitiesand heroes 35 tremissis Sebastian Heath and David Yoon. A sixth-century fromPsalmodi (Gard, France) 63 Michael Fedorov. New data on the monetarycirculationof medieval Uzgend: coins fromthe Kashka-Terekhillfort 81 Joel J. Orosz. JosephJ. Mickley'sdiary for1852: an annotated transcription 89 Aleksandar N. Brzić. Yugoslav countermarkson AustroHungariangold coins 109 Warren W. Esty and David Spencer Smith. A die study of some silvercoins of Sinkiang,China 133 BOOK REVIEW Kenneth Sheedy, Robert Carson, and Alan Walmsley, Pella in Jordan1979-1990: thecoins. Oliver D. Hoover 147 NEW ACQUISITIONS Ute Wartenberg, Peter van Alfen, Elena Stolyarik, Sebastian Heath, Michael Bates, and Robert W. Höge. Acquisitionsfor2000 and 2001 in the AmericanNumismatic Society collection This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:08 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 151 AJN Second Series 13 (2001) pp. 1-20 Numismatic © 2002TheAmerican Society A SMALL SILVER FIND FROM BULLION OF EGYPT John H. Kroll* (Plate 1) There is no way of knowingwhen or under what circumstancesthis modestgroup of miscellaneouspieces of silvercame into the possession of the American NumismaticSociety. It has resided in the Society's Greek vault forprobablymore than a half century,stored,at least in recent decades, in a tray with a few other minor hoards or parts of hoards. The pieces had once been kept togetherin a white envelope 1 that was annotated in a nondescripthand: "Hoard fromEgypt. . .19". There are indeed nineteenpieces: three completeround cake ingots; Athenian tetradrachms,of which one had been cut two fifth-century down and the other had been tested with a small gash; one flattened coin-likedump; and thirteenirregularpieces of cut-silverof various sizes. Weights,dimensions,and details are as follows: * Department AustinTX 78712-1181, ofTexasat Austin, ofClassics, University USA ([email protected]). 1 I thankSebastian thefindto myattenHeathand OliverHooverforbringing This references. several crucial van Alfen for and Peter tion, paperowesmuchalso of Coinsand Medalsand MuseumDepartment MeadowsoftheBritish to Andrew and facilitating MuseumCoinRoomfordiscussion HenryKim of theAshmolean of thesummer in in their collections cut-silver the and examination of ingots my 2000. 1 This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions John H. Kroll 2 Round cake ingots One side flat and smooth,with two or more irregularextrusions;the other side convex, with a rough surface (except towards the center where the roughnesshas been abraded throughwear). A nick in 2, flat side, along the rim (at 3 o'clock on Plate 1) was probably cut to expose the metal beneath the surface.Apart fromtheirsimilarweights 2 and 3 are related by theirperpendicularcollar-likeedge. 1. 92.96 g, 44 X 11 mm (th.). 2. 68.27 g, 38 X 11 mm. 3. 64.30 g, 33 X 13 mm. Atheniantetradrachms Obverse: head of Athena r., with frontaleye and threeuprightolive leaves on the brow of her helmet. Reverse: owl standingr. with olive spray and AGE. 4Ě 16.99 g, 24 mm, die axis 5 o'clock. Small test-cutbeneath the tail of the owl on the reverse. 5. 11.62 g, 24 mm. Segmentcut away. The reversetype is entirely obliterated. Flatteneddump The disk does not appear to be a hammeredcoin; the suggestionof a possibly obliterateddesign on the middle of one side is more likely randomsurfaceunevennessthan traces of an almost completelyeffaced coin type. 6. 4.29 g, 11 mm. Pieces of cut-silver None appear to have been chopped fromcoins. 7. 12.02 g. Roughly square with a deep test gash in middle. 22 x 20 X 7 mm. 8. 10.70 g. Triangular,cut on all threesides. 25 x 20 x 7 mm. 9. 10.73 g. Edge fragmentof cake ingot;cut on two sides. 18 x 20 x 10 mm. This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions A Small Find of Silver Bullion from Egypt 3 10. 12.89 g. Amorphous lump composed of six or more small pieces fusedtogetherby heat. 11. 6.43 g. Amorphouslump composed of several small pieces fusedtogetherby heat. 12-19. Irregularcut chunks:8.56 g, 5.52 g, 5.97 g, 3.48 g, 2.86 g, 2.27 g, 2.24 g, 1.11 g. Despite the poor preservationof the Athenian tetradrachms,the visible details indicate that both coins date roughly to the third quarter of the fifthcentury.2Since the coins are damaged, we should probablydate the findto the later fifthor the earlierfourthcentury. COMPARABLE HOARDS FROM EGYPT There can be no doubt that the findcomes fromEgypt, as it replicates the contentsof a numberof fifth-and fourth-centuryEgyptian hoards, which typicallyinclude cake ingots and chopped ingot fragments along with Greek coins, both whole (though frequentlygashed) and in chopped pieces. For purpose of comparison,I here list ten such hoards which were recorded with some attention to their uncoined silver,along with three silver hoards (cited and reviewed by Dressel and Regling 1927: 6) in which there were no coins. The three hoards without coins were most likely secreted before Greek coins began to flood into Egypt in the last quarterof the sixth century. 2 bothpiecesbelongafterStarr(1970)GroupV.Abutbefore thefullStylistically blownmechanical of thelaterfifth-century standardization owls.No. 4, withits letters andowlwitha two-part tidy,unevenly-sized (smallomicron) wingarticulated in highrelief, hasparallels in Starr(1970:pls.XX.195[GroupV.B] andXXII.1'-3' To judgefromthehelmetpalmette, 5 is later,definitely after [early"post-449"]). of 449 has beenadjustedupwards to c. 454 GroupV. NowthatStarr'sterminus ofthefifth 5 somewhere (Kroll1993:6), 4 shouldbelongaroundthemiddle century, - unlessit is actually inorsoonafterthethirdquarter of oneofthemanyimitations laterfifth-century owlsmanufactured in Egyptinthefourth in andperhaps century thelatefifth itis impossible to tell.No.4, on (seebelow);givenitspoorpreservation theotherhand,is almostcertainly Athenian sinceEgyptian imitations didnotcopy owlsofpre-standardized omicrons. typewithlayered wingsandsmallish This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 4 John H. Kroll No Coins a. Samanoud (ancient Sebennytos,in the Delta), 1890s (Dutilh 1899: 287-88; Dressel and Regling 1927: 6 no. 1), gift to the Greco-RomanMuseum, Alexandria: 470 pieces of chopped silver, includingpieces of jewelry. b. Mit Rahineh (ancient Memphis),February 1906, fromexcavations at Kom el-Qala (Brugsch 1906: 163; Dressel and Regling 1927: 6 no. 2): 4 whole cake ingots(92 g, 142 g, 147 g, 149 g), of whichtwo had been gashed across with a chisel,and the half of a fifthcake ingot (107 g). The silvertested at 95% fine. c. Tel el-Athrib,near Benha (Delta), excavated on September27, 1924 (Engelbach 1924; Dressel and Regling 1927: 6 no. 3): 50 kg of silver in the formof lumps, ingots, amulets, rings and other small, mostly fragmentaryobjects in two broken potteryjars. Engelbach lists and illustratesmany of the inscribedand figured objects, and states that "[t]hey all seem to date between the XXVIth dynasty[c. 672-525 BC] and Ptolemaic times,but none of them permitus to date them more precisely."Cairo Museum inv. no. 48859.4 With coins d. Mit Rahineh (ancient Memphis) 1869 ( IGCH 1636; c. 500 BC [Jenkins]):23+ coins; 73 kilogramsof ingots and cut-silver.See note 3 above. 3 MitRahineh listsa secondlotofcakeingotsfrom thatcamefrom an Brugsch earlierfindand had beendeposited in theCairoMuseum. Theseingots, however, are80 g, 98 g, mayhavebeenpartofhoard"d"below,MitRahineh1860.Weights witha chisel. 133g, 158g, and257g; thethirdingotwastest-cut thattheBerlincabinetacquireda lot of 233 g of smallto Reglingmentions minuscule piecesofsilverlumps,wire,sheet,and foilthatwereallegedto be part threecoinsfrom to rejectas modern additions ofthesamefind.He wassurely right withthe and secondcenturies northern Greece(fourth BC), whichwereincluded silver. This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions A Small Find of Silver Bullion from Egypt 5 e. Demanhur (Delta) 1900-01 ( IGCH 1637; c. 500 BC [Kraay]): 164 coins; 2 cake ingots ("Silberkuchen" [Dressel and Regling 1927: 9]). f. Sakha (Delta) 1897, ( IGCH 1639; early fifthc. BC [Jenkins]): 72+ coins; 3 pieces of silver ingots and an uncertainnumber of coin fragments,all of which were melted down as worthless (Dressel 1900: 250).5 g. Benha el-Asl (Delta) 1929 ( IGCH 1640; c. 485 BC [Robinson]): 77+ coins, most gashed or fragments; 13 small cake ingots (weighingfrom48 g [diam. 35 mm] down to 9 g [diam. 20 mm]); 2 cut-silverfragments.The British Museum acquired all of the unminted silver. Robinson (1930, 1931) gives the weight and dimensionof each piece and illustratesone of the larger ingots (1930: pl. IX, no. 33). Some of the smaller ingots may be fused or partiallymelted coins. h. Asyut (Middle Egypt) 1968 or 1969 ( IGCH 1644; c. 475 BC [Price]): 631+ coins, many gashed or fragments;5 fragmentsof cake ingots, and one roughly hemisphericaldump (Price and Waggoner 1975: 115, with photos of two of these pieces, pl. xxxi). i. Naucratis (Delta) 1885 ("silversmith'shoard") ( IGCH 1647; 450-425 BC [Barron]): 15 coins (of which 6 are Athens of mid to late fifth-century style), with 42 oz of roughlycast and cut-up lumps of silver. j. Zagazig (Delta) 1901 ( IGCH 1645; c. 470 [Barron],but a much later date, probably in the fourthcenturyBC, is called for): 84 coins, of which the latest are 5 Athenian tetradrachms,4 5 In thehoard in addition thataboutforty Dressel(1900:250)writes publication, with the hoard. He illustrates lead were associated two,one squarish, stamped pieces withtheobverse, theotherwitha reverse Athenian drachm, stampof a post-480 in bothapparently drachms trialpiecesfortheproduction of imitation Athenian If with the silver these remnants from an mint were found Egypt. truly Egyptian andis remi(onecanonlysaythatit is at leastnotbeyondtherealmofpossibility niscent ofthebronzereverse diethatwasallegedly foundwiththecoinsoftheTel el-Athrib hoard[seenote14 below]),theburialdateoftheassemblage wouldhave to be lowered considerably. This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 6 John H. Kroll of the second half of the fifthcenturyand one apparentlyof the fourth6;16 cake ingots,and two cut halves of ingots,all of which are preservedin Berlin. Six of the ingots,of which one has the Athenian tetradrachmcorroded onto it, fourth-century-looking are illustratedin Dressel and Regling (1927: pl. IV). k. Delta 1940 ( IGCH 1650; 375-350 BC [Robinson]): 9 coins, includingSidon, some gashed; 2 coins (?) with fused,obliterated types; 1 small cast disk ingot (Robinson 1960: pl. 11.12), now in the AshmoleanMuseum- 8.33 g, diam. 27 mm, th. 5 mm even. 1. Beni Hasan (Middle Egypt) 1903 ( IGCH 1651; c. 360 BC [Jenkins]):77 coins (of which 55 are Athens, fifth-century type; with Sidon, Tyre, Gaza); 1 small cake ingot (22 g; diam. 28 mm) and 6 irregularlycut ingot fragments.Robinson (1937) gives weightsand dimensionsof the uncoined silver pieces, which are in the BritishMuseum. m. Naucratis (Delta) 1905 ( IGCH 1652; c. 360 BC [Jenkins]):83 coins (of which 70 are Athens: 68 of fifth-century type, 2 of 6 ThreeofthefivelaterAthenian tetradrachms (Dresseland Regling1927:nos. timein Kraay(1975:plate,nos.1-3).They, forthefirst 219-221)wereillustrated withthefourth areofthestandard(no.222)thatKraaydidnotillustrate, together ized typeof thesecondhalfor last thirdof thefifth and led Kraayto century a closingdateofc. 440 BC forthehoard.But at leastoneofthesetetrasuggest thewide-flan no.220 (Kraay1975:no.3) is surely an Egyptian imitation drachms, ofthefourth and noneoftheothersare abovesuspicion ofbeingfourthcentury, imitations as well(seebelow). century Egyptian In orderto checktheaccuracy ofthepublished ofthetetradrachm (no. drawing ofthe ontoIngotb (DresselandRegling 1927:pl. IV), Dr. B. Weisser 223)corroded whichtendto confirm that BerlinCabinetkindly sentme a castand photograph, the Athenaof thistetradrachm does indeedappearto have a profile eye,fully owl silverof thefourth in keeping withstandard Athenian openedat thefront, of silverovertheoutline But sincetherearesomeparticles ofredeposited century. of theeye was only theeye,one cannotbe sure,and it maybe thatthefront and goldcoinagesofthelastdecadeof silver-plated partially open,as on Athens' whichotherwise thetetradrachm's thefifth reverse, might century. Unfortunately, Forall onecan is affixed to theingotand cannotbe inspected. decidethematter, in origin. tell,thiscointoomaybe Egyptian This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions A Small Find of Silver Bullion from Egypt 7 fourth-century type); "a few silver ingots and probably also coin fragments"(Dressel and Regling 1927: 4). Could the ANS assemblage be a small parcel fromone of these later hoards? It is not impossible,but differencesin the character of the unmintedsilver make it unlikely.For instance the very small bits of cut-silver,like our 15-19, have not been reportedfromany of these later finds;nor are any of the betterpreservedhoards known to have produced lumps of silver, like our 10 and 11, composed of smaller pieces that had been partially melted together,although Robinson (1960: 35) notes that "[h]alf melted coins and lumps of fused metal are regularlyfound in hoards fromthe Persian empire and especially Egypt." Probably the most intriguingpiece in the ANS materialis the flattened dump (6) that has the exact weight of an Attic drachm and a mixed hoard nearlyexact counterpartin the great early fifth-century of bullionand archaic coins fromTaranto, Italy ( IGCH 1874). The disk fromTaranto, slightlyovoid and flatter,weighs 4.31 g.7 A third but lighterflattenedsilver dump (test-cutwith a chisel) showed up in the late sixth-century mixed coin/bullionhoard fromSelinus,Sicily in 1985 (Arnold-Biucchi,Beer-Tobey,Waggoner 1988: 26, pl. 12 A); at 2.45 g, affiliation,if any, with a standard weight system is not obvious. Together,these "flans"forma class of anonymous,typeless,but still coin-likepieces, produced in some cases as standard-weightdrachms, that circulatedin areas where silver was transactedby weight.There are no sure indicationsthat any of these flatteneddisks had once been a struckcoin. Any distinctivenessof the ANS Egyptian findis thus to be foundin its smallerpieces. The two Atheniantetradrachms,on the otherhand, are entirelytypical of Egyptian silverassemblages of the fifthcentury and most of the fourth,as are the three ingots of bun or cake type. Other kinds of ancient silver ingots are known fromfindsoutside of Egypt- like the rectangularslab or brick ingotsrecoveredin Western 7 Thereis a withsomeofthecut-silver fromtheTarantohoardin photograph Price(1980:fig.60). This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 8 John H. Kroll Greek contexts8or the flat pancake ingots that came to light in the Antilebanon1981 hoard (Hurter and Paszthory 1984: 121, pls. 16-17 nos. b-i)9- but in Egypt the round, plano-convexcake type of ingot recurswithoutexceptionand is the prevalentingot type in contemporarymixed hoards fromthe Levant as well.10 Such ingotsowe theirshield-likeshape to having been cast in open, saucer-likecrucibles.One face (the upper,open side at time of casting) is regularlyflat and smooth; the other side, shaped by the concave mould, is convex and normallyhas a rough,pitted surfacecaused by the grittytexture of the mould (which was probably made of coarse ceramic). Oftenprotrudingfromthe smooth,upper surfaceare one or more irregularknobs or extrusionsof silverformedby solidificationof highly viscous bubbles of metal when highly purifiedmolten silver cools. In a discussion of these extrusions, C. Conophagos (1980: 329-30) states that they formonly on silver with a purityof 98.5% or higherand thereforeserved as a guaranteeof an ingot'sfineness. In shape and size, the ANS specimens are fairly typical, and compare closely to the ingots fromthe Zagazig hoard illustratedby Dressel and Regling (1927: pl. VI). The largest of the Zagazig specimens is considerablybigger than any of the ANS ingots, weighing 156 g and having a diameter of 57 mm; the smallest,with a 22-mm diameterand weighinga mere 15.5 g, is very much smaller. In some Egyptian hoards,like Benha el-Asl and the Delta hoards,nearlyall of the round ingots are small, not much or not any largerthan a Greek 8 See theendofan brick inBabelon(1912: theTarantohoardpictured ingotfrom to Zeus,from dedication brickingot(725g) withan inscribed 335)andthecomplete no. 423 = IG XIV no. 597). 1893-1916: Museum(Hirschfeld Sicily,in theBritish ofthepieceofa flatslabingotin theSelinushoard(ArnoldLead isotopie analysis its silveras probably identified Biucchiet al. 1988,ingotB) has provisionally 2001:66-67).It and or Iran et al. from (Stos-Gale coming Spain(Beer-Tobey 1998) havebeenon depositat the nowin a privatecollection, theotherSelinusingots, Museum. Ashmolean to 6). Museum Mostoftheseingotsarenowin theBritish (inv.1988-4-12-1 10See, for in theRas Shamra all withextrusions, thefinespecimens, example, known 1939:485-86,fig.11).Theearliest 1936hoard(IGCH 1478;Schaeffer ingots withthenameoftheNeo-Hittite arethethreeinscribed ofsilverin cakeform king 733-732BC, froma hoard(nowsee Gitinand Golani2001:38) excaBarrakkab, inwestern vatedat Zinjirli Syria. This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions A Small Find of Silver Bullion from Egypt 9 silvertetradrachm;such smalleringotstend to be disk-like,with relativelyeven thicknesses,but since they were cast in round moulds with one side roughand the otherside smooth(and may sometimeshave an silver extrusionon their flat side), it seems reasonable to associate themwith the normallylargerplano-convexingots. Some cake ingotswere very large indeed, althoughthe evidence for them comes from outside of Egypt. At 420.8 g, the complete cake ingot (diam. 80 mm) fromthe Selinus hoard (Arnold-Biucchi,BeerTobey, Waggoner, 1988: 26, pl. 12, ingot E) weighs very close to a Attic/Aeginetanmina (433 g); and the very thick, cut quarter of anothercake ingotin the same hoard (ingot D, 597.4 g) comes froman ingotthat must have originallyweighedin the neighborhoodof 2400 g. The 140-plus "cakes" ( phthoides ) of unminted silver stored in the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis in 344/3 BC and listed in an Atheniantreasuryinscriptionof that year were much largerstill,each of a talent.11 weighing12 minas (5196 g) or one-fifth Apart from documentingthe great size of these Athenian ingots, theiritemizationin the inscriptionservesto remindus that the conventional modernterm,cake or bun ingot,mirrorsgood ancientpractice,12 11See IG II2.1443lines in Harris(1995: 123-27), 12-88;textand translation where(as in LSJ) the wordphthois is misleadingly translated "bar"insteadof Theingotswerestoredandinventoried in groupsoffive,i.e.,bytalents. It "ingot". is interesting thatveryfewof thesecakesweighed an exact1200drachms, most or moreoffonewayortheother,in a deviation from idealweight beinga drachm thatis reminiscent ofGreekcoins.Theheaviest oftheingots 1208drachms, weighed thelightest 1184. 12In an inscribed accountof late fifth-century Athens(IG I3.376lines57, 105, is usedforsmalleringotsof gold, 111,1170),the samewordforcake (phthois) whichcollectively 300drachms, from in coastalThrace. weighed Skaptesyle Sincea unitoftheSpartans' ironcurrency was knownas a pelanor, or primitive sacrificial a moneyof cake,it wouldseemthatthisSpartanmoneywas effectively ironcakeingots. Plutarch thata pelanor a mina;and (Moralia226D)writes weighed as ironis about30% lessdensethansilver, a Spartanironpelanor wouldhavebeen somewhat thantheSelinusingotE, i.e.,aboutlargeenough to entirely fillthe larger hand.Bronzewas another metalthatwas commonly tradedin cakeor bunform. Cakeingotsof bronzego backto thesecondmillennium; forbibliography and an informative discussion ofthe24 bronzecakeingotsrecovered from theLate Bronze offtheSW coastofTurkey inthelate1950s,seeBass(1967:78-81). Ageshipwreck A verylargediskingotofbronze(so Boardman 1985:no. 158)is depicted on the This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 10 John H. Kroll and also how inaccurate it is to referto the cake ingot as a "SyroEgyptian" type (cf. Price and Waggoner 1975: 115), despite its commonappearance in Egyptian and Levantine hoard contexts.Lead isotopie analyses of the cake ingot and ingot quarter fromthe Selinus hoard have in fact revealed that the silverof both came fromAegean sources; in the case of the complete Selinus ingot (E), the silver is almost certainly from Laurion (Beer-Tobey, Gale, Kim, Stos-Gale 1998; Stos-Gale 2001: 66). It is to be hoped that in time the ANS and other ingots can be likewise sourced by identifyingtheir lead Meanwhile,the most suggestiveevidence forthe isotope "fingerprints". of most origin ingots in Egyptian (and Levantine) bullion hoards is provided by the Greek coins that were found with them; for if most of the coined silverin Egypt came as it did fromthe miningdistricts of the northernand central Aegean basin, these should also be the sources that in the sixth and fifthcenturieswere supplyingmost of the unmintedsilverto Egypt as well. It is generallyrecognizedthat authoritiesin Egypt began to mint and make payments in silver coin in the first half of the fourth century,in large part (scholars have assumed) for compensatingthe foreignmercenarieswho were recruitedfor Egypt's strugglesfor independence from Persia. The silver coinage of choice was the fifthcentury Athenian tetradrachm,the supply of which, once Athens ceased mintingsilver near the end of the Peloponnesian War, was hugely augmented by Egyptian imitations,some occasionally with Aramaic or demotic inscriptions(Kraay 1976: 294-295; Lipiński 1982; Buttrey 1982, 1984; Jones and Jones 1988: 107-110; Price 1993; furtherbibliography in Stroud 1974: 169-71 and Figueira 1998: 13 530-534). The great Egyptian hoards of such Athenianand pseudoSosinosin theLouvre(Clairmont fourth-century gravesteleof thebronze-smelter themould smooth roundobjectbehindit is probably 1970:no. 10);thestilllarger, inwhichit wascast. 13To the various and thathave beenidentified typesof Egyptianimitations discussed overtime,it has beenrecently 2000b)to add a (Nicolet-Pierre proposed thirdofthefourth ofthefirst well-defined tetradrachms century; groupofAthenian witha profile werethefirst to depicttheheadofAthena thesetetradrachms eyeand and heavily-fringed owlwithan enlarged to displaya newlyproportioned thefirst as freeandhighly to Nicolet-Pierre, thesecoinsareto be recognized head.According This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions A Small Find of Silver Bullion from Egypt 11 Atheniantetradrachmsdate to the fourthcentury.14As we have seen, however,in the fifthcenturyand also for much of the fourth,silver was hoarded in Egypt in the formof bullion,and to this day scholars are not entirelyin agreementas to the significanceof these earlier hoards: whether the bullion in them was assembled for monetary purposesor merelyas a commodity,valuable primarilyas raw material forthe manufactureof jewelryand finemetal vessels. Early commentators regularly dubbed the hoards "silversmiths'hoards" (cf. the Naucratis hoard, "g" above; Engelbach 1924) or interpretedthem as remainsof a jewelers workshop(Brugsch 1906) or of a mint (Dutilh 1899). But early in the last centuryDressel (1900: 257-58) and Dressel and Regling (1927: 12) insisted on the currency interpretation, explainingthat the frequencyand characterof such finds,which regularly included coins and ingots that had been chopped into smaller pieces, point to a monetary convention,well known, for example, frommedieval northernand easternEurope (cf. Williams 1997: frontispiece [silverbullionhoard fromVikingEngland, eighthc. AD] and fig. 117 [Russian cut-silveringot of the twelfthor thirteenthc. AD]),15 in of fifth-century creativeEgyptianimitations owls.But the profile eye and the owlhappenalsoto be characteristic ofthevoluminous Athestubby, shaggy-headed nianpi-style silverofthesecondhalfofthefourth andsinceit is unthinkcentury; ablethattheAthenians wouldhavemodeled thelattercoinageonforeign imitations, thetetradrachms inquestion removed from as pseudo-Athemaybe safely suspicion nian.Although the onlysuchtetradrachms withrecorded comefrom findspots hoardsin Sicilyandonehoardin Egypt(Tel el-Athrib, seenote14),theirunmistakable styleis to be seenveryclearlyin thetribolsand diobolsin thesmalllamp hoardfrom Ag.IoannisRentisin Attica( IGCH 89; Kroll1993:8 n. 25). Tel el-Athrib 1905( IGCH 1663):700tetradrachms to the (together, according withthebronzereverse die fora fifth-century Athenian owltetradrachm). vendor, Tellel-Maskhouta ofthe (Delta)1947-48( IGCH 1649):6000+tetradrachms. Reports latterfindand theAramaicinscriptions on therelatively intactsilverbowlsfound withthe coinsclearlyindicatethatthe find(whichalso included gold-set agate ofa templededicated to theforeign inlays)wasa treasure goddessAlat,and nota hoard.The inscribed bowlshad beendedicated around410 BC by chiefcurrency tainsof someQedariteArabs,another aliengroupsettledin EgyptunderPersian Museum 1956:43-44).It is worth 1956,1959;Brooklyn auspices(Rabinowitz noting thattheAthenian coinsin theseandotherfourth-century likehoards1 and hoards, m above,arerarely neverchopped intopieces. gashedandwereapparently 15Thewordruble comesfrom theRussianverb"to cut(off)".Foran important ofsuchhistorical see Regling survey comparanda, (1926:225-236). This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 12 John H. Kroll which exchange was transactedthroughthe cuttingand weighingout of silverbullionon the scale. E.S.G. Robinson (1930: 94) accepted this interpretationas conclusive. Yet in the new OxfordEncyclopediaof AncientEgypt, P. F O'Rourke (2001: 288) comes dangerouslyclose to revivingthe old silversmithinterpretation by writing,with referenceto the coins in the bullion hoards, that "[i]t is highlydoubtful,however, that these coins were consideredof any intrinsicvalue by native Egyptians, other than the artisans who worked in gold and silver. To the metalworkers,such coins were desirable as a source of bullion..." and that "beyond their value as metal, coins appear to have played next to no role in the Egyptian economy of the sixth and fifthcenturies BCE."16 However true this last statementmay be, O'Rourke's attention to metalworkersshows that he was unaware that silver bullion played a very significantrole in the Egyptian economy duringthose centuries. That it did has been understood for some time from the great papyrusarchive of the Jewishmilitarysettlementat Elephantinenear Aswan in upper Egypt. The records,writtenin Aramaic,began around 500, after the Persian king established the military colony, and continuedto the beginningof the fourthcentury.In the many documents that deal with economic matters marriage contracts,bills of sale, loan agreements,receipts of payment, deeds of ownership,and the like- prices and means of transactionare expressedin weightsof silver.17There being no state silvercoinage at this time,it is clear that the communityemployeda currencyof silverthat was weighedout on 16Möller that an alternative use, declaring non-currency (2000:209) suggests onlyamongthe elite,who objectin Egypt,circulating "[sļilverwas a prestige theirwealth".For explicit utilizedit eitherforgiftexchangeor to demonstrate see theElephantine ofthissilver, oftheuse ofa balancein thepayment mention divorces 1953:Papyrus7), c. 420 BC: "IfYehoyishma contract marriage (Kraeling Sheshallsitbythescales ..sheshallbecomeliablefordivorce herhusband. money. and shallgiveto herhusband7 silvershekelsand 2 quarters" (lines24-26).The recordof thefirst harbortaxesin silverand goldlistedin an Egyptiancustoms mustsimilarly have beenweighedout (Yardeni1994; halfof the fifthcentury BriantandDescat1998). 17The arenon-EgyptheshekelandthePersiankarsh, mostcommonly weights, tian. This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions A Small Find of Silver Bullion from Egypt 13 the balance, similar to that which was employed throughoutthe Persian empire at the time (Porten 1968: 62-72; Naster 1970), and which of course had been independentlyimplied by the contemporary Egyptian hoards of silverbullion,as Dressel and Reglinghad deduced. Thus, just as in Mesopotamia and the Levant, where over two dozen hoards of silver bullion,some as early as the second millennium,have come to light,and where the textual evidence for the use of silver as an importantmonetaryinstrumentis older and much more abundant than in Egypt, texts and hoards readily supplementeach other and allow us to identifysuch hoards confidentlyas monetaryin nature.18 Marriage contractson papyri fromthe Persian era attest furtherto the widespread monetary use of silver in Egypt at this time; the formulaic contracts are written in demotic and record penalty paymentsin weightsof silver,the weightsbeing the traditionalEgyptian debenand kite.(Porten 1968: 68; Chauveau 1998: 140-141). In Egypt the exchange use of silver can be traced back to the New Kingdom, when prices were notationally expressed in weight-units ) of copper- unlike silver, a metal native to Egypt- and (idebens paymentscould be made in any goods, includinglivestock,in a fixedvalue type of barter-exchangearrangement(Kemp 1989: 248-250). Hence silverand gold mightboth be used, and it is worthnotingthat the great fourteenth-century hoard fromAmarna (Kemp 1989: 244-45, fig. 82; Williams 1997: fig. 11) consisted of bullion in both metals.19 Yet even withinthis contextof heterogeneousexchange,writtendocuments from the craftsmen'svillage of Deir el-Medina near Thebes reveal that by the twelfthcentury the word for silver (hedj) had acquired a broader, colloquial meaning as a kind of generic term for "money" (Janssen 1975: 9; Kemp 1989: 248-250; Williams 1997: 20-21). If this marks an early stage in the recognitionof silver as the preferredmetal in economic exchange, by the Persian period silver 18On NearEastern in Williams texts,see theoverview (1997:16-19).On Near Easternhoards(and texts),see mostrecently Le Rider(2001: 1-17),Gitinand Golani(2001),andStern(2001). 19As didtheearlier andlarger TodTreasure ofthetwentieth BC (Bisson century de la Roque1950). This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 14 John H. Kroll had become monetarilyso dominantthat copper was no longer used notationally,fines and payments were expressed in terms of and routinelytransacted in silver, and the hoarding of silver bullion, as finds indicate, had became commonplace. Clearly, by the sixth and fifthcenturies,silver was far more abundant in Egypt than earlier, the result,one assumes, of large-scaleimportationof the metal from the Aegean, at firstprobablythroughLevantine middlemenand then, afterthe establishmentof Naucratis as a Greek emporiumin the later seventh century,from trade directly with Greek suppliers. In the second half of the seventh centuryalso, Egypt began to receive an unprecedentedinfluxof foreignersfromthe Aegean and the Levant, who came as merchantsand mercenarysoldiersand establishedtheir own, separate ethnic communities(Ray 2001: 11.269-271). Since most of them,like the Jewishsoldiersgarrisonedat Elephantine,came from regionswhere weighed silver bullion had long served as currency,the presenceand special economic importanceof these communitiescould only have intensifiedthe wide-spreaduse of this practicein Egypt. A major modificationwithinthis currencyemergedover the course of the fifthcenturyas Egyptians came increasinglyto prefersilver in the form of the Athenian tetradrachm.Fifth-centuryhoards reveal that after c. 480 the Athenian tetradrachmwas virtually the only specie of Greek coinage that continuedto enterEgypt20and, as noted above, the demand forthese coins eventuallybecame so heavy that the Egyptians resortedto mintinggreat quantities of them themselves. Apparently,in certain transactional circumstancespayment in any other kind of silver was no longer acceptable. The earliest written evidence specifyingpaymentin this coinage (or in its unit of weight) dates fromthe last decade of the fifthcenturyand the firstdecade of the fourth.In the Aramaic dossierfromElephantine,documentsof the years 408, 401, 400, and 399 specifypaymentsof a "stater"or a "stater 20The oftheAthenian tetradrachm, especially importation heavyand exclusive in theLevantas wellas Egypt. welldocumented afterc. 450,is a phenomenon of Egyptian Now see Nicolet-Pierre (2000a),who notesalso the largenumbers in the fourth in the Levant that are found tetradrachms century pseudo-Athenian be duelargely owlsilvertheremight thatthepopularity ofAthenian andsuggests influence. to Egyptian This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions A Small Find of Silver Bullion from Egypt 15 of Greek silver"("silver of Yawan" i.e., of Ionia, the place name Near Eastern peoples used forGreece at large) (Porten 1968: 64, 69; Naster 1970: 34-35; Lipiński 1982: 23-24; with Grelot 1972: nos. 6, 7, and 63). Similarly,among the demotic contractsrecordedon ostraca from the oasis site of Manâwir in Egypt's westerndesert,five, which date from410 to 400, stipulatepenaltypaymentsin "staters"or "statersof Ionia", and a sixth, dating to 393 or 387, concernsa loan deposit of one stater (Chauveau 2000: 138-139). There can be no doubt that these staters are Athenian tetradrachms,not only because of the latters exclusive ubiquityat this time in Egypt, but also since several of the contractsdefinethe Greek stater in traditionalElephantine or that it was a coin (and weight Egyptian silverweightunits,informing unit) of 17+ g. In the main administrativeand population centersof Egypt, preference for the transactionaluse of the Athenian tetradrachmought to have taken hold earlier than we find at Elephantine and at an oasis in the Western Desert. But as the mixed character of some of the hoards implies, silver continued to circulate and be fourth-century transacted in bullion formas earlier, even as payments in Athenian tetradrachmsmight be increasinglypreferredor required, with or withoutweighing,in particulareconomic contexts. For every one of the late fifth-and early fourth-century ostraca from Manâwir that a in there is another that specifiespayment in gives penalty staters, traditionalweights of silver (deben) (Chauveau 2000: 140-141). One assumes that coin use, normallywithoutweighing,must have steadily advanced over bullion use as the fourthcenturywore on, but it may not have been untilthe advent of the Ptolemaic economythat the long transitionwas finallycompleted. Among the several stages of the evolution of silver currencyin Egypt, the nineteen-pieceANS find survives as a modest witness to the intermediateand long-lived bullion phase when even Athenian tetradrachmswere still regarded as pieces of silver to be transacted by weight. However prized they may have been for their familiarity and reputationfor fineness,one of the two hoard tetradrachms(5) had been cut down and could have never passed at face value, without weighing.As for the find itself,as it had been assembled fromsmall pieces of silver as well as large, it implies, perhaps more palpably This content downloaded from 83.85.134.3 on Sun, 24 Jan 2016 11:00:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 16 John H. Kroll than any of the otherrecordedhoards, that weighedsilverin Persianera Egypt was employed not only for major transactions,but also in many that must have been quite humble. REFERENCES Arnold-Riucchi,C., L. Beer-Tobey, and N. M. Waggoner. 1988. 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