Pontius Pilate Prutah 29AD

Started by ghipszky, November 28, 2021, 09:16:45 PM

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ghipszky

Pontius Pilate Prutah 29AD
16mm 2.10gr
Hendin 648
Three bound ears of barley, the outer 2 ears droop surrounded by legend .
Reverse:
Libation ladle(simpulum) surrounded by legend (of Tiberius Caesar) and the date is yr 16.
Not sure of the mint on this one.
Ginger

Figleaf

To guide the eye, here is another copy.

Prutah, 29 AD. AE 2.09 gr. – 15.4 mm. Hendin 648.

Obverse: Three ears of barley, IOYΛIA KAICAPOC (Julia [wife] of Caesar, referring to Julia Livia, mother of Tiberius).
Reverse: Simpulum surrounded by TIBEPIOY KAICAPOC (of Tiberius Caesar) and LIS (year 16).

As a provincial governor, Pilatus was not entitled to issue coins in his name, so this coin has the name of emperor Tiberius and his mother. The connection between Pilatus and the coin is the date on the coin. The three ears of barley motif was revived on the Israeli one agora coins 1960-1980.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

SC

The work of the Israeli numismatist D.T. Ariel has demonstrated that the prutah of the Roman procurators of Judaea were struck in Jerusalem just like those of the pervious Herodian and Hasmonaean Jewish dynasties. 

They share the same minting techniques and mint evidence has been found in the city.

SC

ghipszky

Peter thank you for posting a coin that you can actually see what is on the coin. I like being able to see the Simpulum. I also think it is special to have coins minted in Jerusalem, it has been a very vibrant place and a big part of coin history.
Ginger

Figleaf

Very interesting, Mr. Otlichnik (quote from a Bond film, I believe ;))

Just to satisfy my insatiable curiosity, has finding "mint evidence" enabled archeologists to determine where in Jerusalem the mint was? My guess would be in a fortified place, near the governor's palace.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

SC

I am not sure.  His findings are apparently laid out in:

Ariel, D. T. (2012), Judean Perspectives of Ancient Mints and Minting Technology, Israel Numismatic Research 7: 43–80.

SC

Figleaf

Just in case, that paper is available for free download here.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

ghipszky

Thank you Peter, that is a very interesting article. I need to read it when it is quiet around here. There has to have been a mint in Jerusalem with the all the coins that you can find out there.
Ginger

Figleaf

While it is an interesting paper, it has no more than a vague answer to my question:

The mint refuse found in excavations in the Jerusalem Citadel (Schauer 2010) support the location of the mint — or one of the mints — in that area of the city. These 71 pieces of bronze debris, together with two unstruck flans from what may have been the same context, and two connected-mold fragments possibly belonging to the same mold block, also found in the Citadel (Table 3, Nos. 32–33), are proposed by Schauer as being debris from a mint.

It would be tidy if one could use the distribution of the more than 30 fragmentary connected-flan molds in the city to support the location of the bronze mint of Jerusalem in the Citadel, where the mint refuse was found. However, the distribution of the finds is too anomalous to point definitively to one mint site. The largest concentration is from the Jewish Quarter (9), but there are similar quantities in the City of David (8) and an area between those two locales, the excavations at the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount (7).
(page 70)

Ariel goes on to advance the idea that the flans were cast in multiple places in and outside the Jerusalem citadel.
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

SC

Though I would suspect that coins of the Roman procurators would likely only have been struck in the Roman-controlled garrison - the citadel - now the Tower of David at the Jaffa gate.

SC

ghipszky

SC, thank you. That is so exciting to me to have something minted in such a special place.
Ginger

Figleaf

#11
Quote from: otlichnik on December 07, 2021, 11:25:18 PM
Though I would suspect that coins of the Roman procurators would likely only have been struck in the Roman-controlled garrison - the citadel - now the Tower of David at the Jaffa gate.

So would I, SC, but that's just logical speculation. The article mentions the fact that coin dies have been found in scattered places within and even outside Jerusalem. Since these coin dies were mostly for flan making, Ariel speculates that flan making was a cottage industry, outsourced even outside city defences. The find spots of the dies and die fragments leads him to believe there was more than one mint in Jerusalem.

I think this is credible, even though we ought to think of the mint being moved, rather than several mints working in parallel. Even in medieval times, there were camp mints, that went along with the army, so the equipment was light enough to carry to another camp. That shows a Roman mint could easily be moved from one place to another in Jerusalem. Don't try that with a modern coin press ;D

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

ghipszky

Peter,
I have a few Roman coins with "Campgates" on their reverses. The campgate coin is very recognizable with the arch as the door into the camp. As much as the Romans traveled around, they needed a portable mint to make their money. It makes sense this would happen in Jerusalem too. A very busy place, especially for festivals throughout the yr.
Ginger

SC

The Roman military almost never struck coins. 

Coins were struck by civil authorities at mints.  During the early Empire there was usually only one mint - Rome, though replaced for a brief while in the early first century by Lugdunum/Lyons.  Later a few were other mints added to be closer to military campaigns but they were still part of the civil administration.  During the late Empire when there were as many as 15 mints they remained entirely civilian controlled.

A very few exceptions or quasi-exceptions are known.  Mark Anthony had the famous legionary denarii struck in the east - but this was really part of his civil government during a civil war.  First century bronzes, especially the Claudian as, were made in some military camps in Spain, Gaul and Britain, to make up for shortages of small change.  A few usurpers struck coins in their military camps as that was all the government they had.  Finally, in the later 4th century and 5th century gold was often struck at comitatensial mints that travelled with the Emperor, who in turn often travelled with the armies.  But they were struck and controlled by the traveling civil authorities not the military.

The Claudian era stuff is probably the only real case of the military ever making coins on its own.  The military did sometimes countermark coins for use by the military or in their areas - though again the vast majority of Roman countermarks were applied by city authorities. 

For those reasons I find it very unlikely that the system changed in Roman occupied Judaea, unlike Roman occupied everywhere else.  I suspect the striking of the procuratorial coins was much more strictly controlled than for the other Judaean coins as it was under Roman control.  As flans form all periods in Judaea are very similar, the non-central remains of coin making in Judaea likely all apply to the pre- and/or post- Procuratorial era.

SC


ghipszky

That is a great explanation SC , thank you. Glad I posted this little coin, so this conversation could be discussed.
Ginger