[gothic-l] Re: Trailing the Eruli in the North - solidi

[faltin2001]

--- In gothic-l at y..., george knysh <gknysh at y...> wrote:
>
> --- faltin2001 <dirk at s...> wrote:
> > I recently received two articles (one unpublished)
> > by an
> > Russian/Ukrainian author A. Sergeev, who wrote about
> > Gothic coins
> > from the Taman and north Black Sea area. I have some
> > 30 coins of this
> > series myself, which is otherwise practically
> > unknown in the west.
> > Sergeev reiterated earlier findings that state that
> > these coins
> > really were made by Goths from 260AD to 360AD. This
> > attribution seems
> > unbelivable, but there really seems to be no other
> > candidate as
> > originator of this coinage and all the evidence
> > points to the Goths.
> > If that was really true it would change our
> > understanding of the
> > Goths and Gothic life in that area quite a bit,
> > because these are low
> > value coins intended from small short distance trade
> > directed towards
> > the north Caucasus.
> >
> >
> > Dirk
> >
> > PS  I can write/talk about coins for hours
>
> *****GK: Hello Dirk!
> What you write here is extremely interesting. Could
> you say something more about these possibly Gothic
> coins? I take it that they differ sufficiently from
> the coinage of the Bosporan Kingdom to be viewed as
> they are by Sergeev?*****


Hello George,

the Numismatic Museum of Odessa has an image of what they call a coin
of the 'Goths of Taman' on their web-site. Here is the link, you have
to scroll down a little:

http://www.museum.com.ua/en/editing/period2/

As you will see these coins are completely different from the coinage
of the Bosporan Kingdom. In fact, this is one of the arguments used
by authors like Oreshchnikov (19th century), Kropotkin, Kazamanova
and recently Sergeev, to attribute these coins to the Goths.

Firstly, these coins are never found together with Borsporan coins.
Their main region of occurance is the southern coasts of the Crimea,
the Kerch peninsula and the Taman peninsula.

While Bosporan coins are stylistically related to Greek coins, the so
called Gothic coins copy Roman denari. In fact, they are copies of
copies of denari of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (or Lucius Verus or
Septimus Severus) with the reverse showing Mars holding a lance.
These Roman denari have been imitated by people in eastern Europe at
a large scale. The greater the distance the more abstract the copies
become.

A second important argument for the attribution of these coins to the
Goths is the fact that the forerunners of the Taman-Gothic pieces are
found in the Ukraine. Thus, a people moving from West to East in the
early 3rd century must be seen as the originators of these coins.

These coins were made between about 260Ad to 360AD. The dating is
very secure, because some hoards have been found by archaeologists in
an archaeological context which allows precise dating.

However, in my view there are some counter arguments. Firstly, the
appearance of Goths on the Crimean and Taman as early as 260AD is not
accepted by all historians, although I read articles by Ukrainian
archaeologists (Aleksander Ajbabin)who clearly state that permanent
Gothic settlement appear on the Crimea as early as 240AD.

I have to stop here, but would like to discuss this further....


cheers
Dirk

















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