Pontisches anonymes Kupfer

Abstract

The author discusses copper coinage with a leather helmet, Iess often a helmeted head or a rose, depicted on the obverse and a star and half-moon or bow on the reverse (Baldwin, RN, 1913). According to the most widely accepted view, these coins were struck by the governors of Mithradates VI in Pontos, Colchis or Bosporus. The author tries to justify a somewhat different opinion about this anonymous copper: that it was struck in Pontos under the predecessors of Mithradates VI. He cites several factors which favour this view, for example: the absence of anonymous coinage in hoards (both Pontic and Bosporan) of Mithradates's time, the abundance of city copper during the reign of this king, the absence in this latter coinage of the countermarks which are characteristic of the anonymous copper coinage, the greater weight of the anonymous coins, and the differing metallic composition of the anonymous and city issues. By analysing the countermarks the author arrives at a new chronological classification of the anonymous Pontic coinage, nearly the reverse of the classification adopted by Baldwin. In Appendix II are published several rare coins of this type from the Hermitage collection.