hrvatski

The Škudljivac hoard reconsidered. Sažetak: Ponovno o ostavi iz Škudljivca

An analysis of the Škudljivac hoard, arguably the most significant of the earliest assemblages of Greek-Illyrian bronze coins from Dalmatia, was a project dear to Duje Rendić-Miočević, who first rescued this deposit from oblivion in his landmark study of the issues he attributed to an Illyrian ruler named Ionios. Professor Rendić-Miočević also correctly linked the Škudljivac hoard to the period following the end of Syracusan influence in the central Adriatic in the third quarter of the 4th century B.C. Indeed, since 1953 his essays have provided the impetus for in- depth investigations of all major Greek-Illyrian mints in the central Adriatic. Even though the results of his subsequent research on the Škudljivac coins are not known, his many insights prompted my own inspection of the largest surviving group of specimens from the hoard in Osijek’ s Muzej Slavonije. My reconstruction of the original find in 1979 would not have been possible without Professor Rendić-Miočević’ s seminal contributions and the generous assistance of friends in Zagreb’ s and Split’ s Archaeological Museums. A full publication of these coins, which have recently been featured in an exhibit held at the Muzej Slavonije in 1997-1999, will be a fitting tribute to his scholarship on Greek-Illyrian coinage. The contents of the Škudlijvac hoard have yet to be studied systematically. According to P. Nisiteo, an antiquarian from Hvar who provided the earliest descriptions of these coins in several letters written between 1835 and 1838, they included 58 large bronzes of Pharos with Head of Zeus / Goat, 47 large bronzes and 2 fractions of Heracleia with Head of Heracles / Bow and club, and 55 large bronzes overstruck with types of uncertain attribution. An unspecified number of these overstrikings bore the legend IONIO. Although Nisiteo was unable to distinguish the undertypes from the second types, he was convinced that this previously unknown legend belonged with the latter. Therefore, he wrote to A. Steinbüchel von Rheinwall (director of Vienna’ s Museum Caesareum), to ask for his opinion, and he even sent him “ some” of the overstrikings from the hoard. Nisiteo subsequently pointed out (in a letter paraphrased by G. Rathgeber) that “ Quaranta esemplari esibiscono il conio del delfino pi&ugrave ; ; o meno chiaro e fra queste (sic) poi 15 presentano ancora traccie delle onde marine.” Did Nisiteo mean that 40 overstrikings only bore a dolphin as a reverse type while 15 other overstrikings (out of a total of 55) showed a dolphin above waves, as I suggested earlier? Or did he imply that on 15 of 40 overstrikings bearing a dolphin a pattern of waves was also visible? Even though these questions cannot be answered, it is certain that the overstrikings included at least 15 specimens of the anepigraphic variety with Youthful male head / Dolphin above waves. I will return to this point later. According to Steinbüchel, who had seen some of these coins, the undertypes belonged to the mint of Lipara and the second types to Pharos. His erroneous attribution to Lipara is understandable in view of the fact that neither he nor Nisiteo had seen original examples of the Ionios issues. Nonetheless, Steinbüchel concluded that Pharos had overstruck the bronzes of another mint, and he was the first to say so unequivocally after an autoptic examination of the evidence at his disposal. Nisiteo (or, less, plausibly, Steinbüchel) also maintained that the overstrikings were struck one more time with the original types, but this has not been confirmed. It is noteworthy that both G. Kubitschek, who later published (albeit without illustrations) the part of the hoard that is now in Osijek, and J. Brunšmid, who discussed the same coins in his 1898 monograph, asserted that the Ionios issues were overstruck by Pharos. Professor Rendić-Miočević’ s analysis, on the other hand, led him to the opposite conclusion, and I myself have thus far agreed with him. If his interpretation is correct, the Ionios issues would be somewhat later than the bronzes of Pharos. Since only one obverse die of Pharos is known from the overstrikings, I argued in my 1979 essay that the minting authority to which the Ionios issues can be attributed (which I identified with Greek settlers on the island of Issa) had acquired a group of newly-minted Pharian coins for the purpose of turning them into Issaean currency at minimum expense. However, it now seems unlikely to me that both anepigraphic dies and dies inscribed with IONIO would have been used for the overstriking. While this may not be ruled out, it seems much more plausible on numismatic grounds that Pharos systematically overstruck with the same obverse die a group of coins including examples of both varieties of the Ionios issues. In addition, the presence among them of a number of specimens of the anepigraphic variety with Male head / Dolphin above waves is chronologically significant, because the same types were overstruck in Dalmatia on Syracusan bronzes with Head of Athena / Star between dolphins probably after 344 B.C. These earlier overstrikings provide a terminus post quem for those in the Škudljivac hoard. Unfortunately, Nisiteo’ s account of the discovery of this deposit leaves much to be desired. All that is known is that these coins were found loose in soil (“ sciolte, sotterrate senza nessun apparecchio” ), and had either a blue-green, or a reddish brown and light brown patination (“ alcune di colore turchino verdognolo pi&ugrave ; ; o meno intenso ; altre di colore bruno-rossiccio e bruno chiaro” ). Nisiteo’ s brief mention of specimens with very different patinas is puzzling, especially when compared to G. Kubitschek’ s 1897 description of the surviving fraction of the assemblage. Kubitschek indicated that these coins were in the same condition and were coated with the same dark green patina (“ La maggior parte dei pezzi... si distingue dal resto.per l’ eguale stato di conservazione e per l’ eguale fino strato di patina verde-oscura.” Since nearly one half of the hoard (75 coins, or 46.29 % of the original aggregate) was dispersed by 1897, Nisiteo’ s assertion that the hoard consisted of three groups of coins with different patinas may never be verified. Moreover, Nisiteo apparently did not realize why these coins comprised such a unique assemblage. At first he was concerned with identifying the provenience of the Heracleian bronzes, and then with the types of the overstrikings. His curiosity in the overstrikings led him to attach greater significance to these coins than to the bronzes of Pharos and Heracleia in the hoard. As a result, subsequent scholars have generally eschewed an analysis of the other components of the Škudljivac hoard. Pending a complete study of the coins now in Osijek, it is clear from Nisiteo’ s descriptions and Kubitschek’ s list that the find contained examples of different issues of both Pharos’ and Heracleia’ s largest denomination in bronze. While the number of obverse dies used for the Ionios issues overstruck by Pharos is still unknown, the presence of the variety with IONIO aswell as the coarse style of the single Pharian obverse die with which the Ionios bronzes wereoverstruck also suggest that the overstrikings belong to an advanced phase in the sequence ofissue of Pharos’ earliest bronze coinage. This assemblage seems to have contained a record ofnearly all the earliest bronze issues of the Greek colonies in Dalmatia.A reexamination of the remaining Pharian bronzes and of the overstrikings in the Škudljivac hoard will also contribute to shed new light on the dating of Pharos’ silver coinage. G. Gorini has recently reaffirmed his suggestion that these silver coins (which he has described as “ obols” ) were minted on a weight standard related to those of Syracuse and Paros. He believes that their types were borrowed from both Syracuse and Pharos, and that the head of Zeus on Pharos’ earliest bronze coins is stylistically akin to that of Zeus Eleutherios on Syracusan bronzes issued after Timoleon. Yet there is little doubt that the types of the heavy Pharian bronzes closely resemble those of the Pharian silver, which can hardly be assigned to the second half of the 4thcentury B.C. Furthermore, the archaeological record shows that virtually no Syracusan coinage issued under the Third Democracy circulated in Dalmatia. Thus, there are no compelling stylistic and metrological reasons to link the earliest bronze issues of Pharos to those of Syracuse with Zeus Eleutherios. Even if Pharos may have adopted a bronze coinage relatively late, its earliestbronze issues (and those of Heracleia) cannot be pushed into the 330s. Gorini’ s view that the minting of bronze coinage by the Greek colonies in Dalmatia began only after the end of Syracusan influence in the area would imply that the Dionysian tyrants prevented the introductionof autonomous coinages by these cities. On the contrary, it may be argued that the influx of Syracusan coins prompted the adoption of a bronze coinage on a similar standard by Pharos and Heracleia at least as early as the mid-4th century.Since the earliest Ionios issues are entirely overstruck upon the Syracusan bronzes with Headof Athena / Star between dolphins, which would not have continued to travel to Dalmatia long after the end of the Dionysian tyranny, the beginning of the Ionios coinage may be dated after c. 344 B.C., a point on which Gorini and I are in agreement. The Ionios bronzes overstruck byPharos in the Škudljivac hoard must be even later, because they include the variety inscribed with IONIO that links this coinage to the island of Vis (Issa), home of the legendary Ionios. Given the fact that a permanent Greek settlement does not seem to have existed on Vis before the Hellenistic period, it is conceivable that the IONIO variety was minted towards the end of the third quarter of the 4th century. Accordingly, our hoard may have been interred c. 325 B.C., and its concealment in the chora of Pharos may be indicative of a period of insecurity for the inhabitants of this colony.

numizmatika; novac; Škudljivac; Hvar; Ionios; Pharos; Herakleia

nije evidentirano

engleski

The Škudljivac hoard reconsidered

An analysis of the Škudljivac hoard, arguably the most significant of the earliest assemblages of Greek-Illyrian bronze coins from Dalmatia, was a project dear to Duje Rendić-Miočević, who first rescued this deposit from oblivion in his landmark study of the issues he attributed to an Illyrian ruler named Ionios. Professor Rendić-Miočević also correctly linked the Škudljivac hoard to the period following the end of Syracusan influence in the central Adriatic in the third quarter of the 4th century B.C. Indeed, since 1953 his essays have provided the impetus for in- depth investigations of all major Greek-Illyrian mints in the central Adriatic. Even though the results of his subsequent research on the Škudljivac coins are not known, his many insights prompted my own inspection of the largest surviving group of specimens from the hoard in Osijek’ s Muzej Slavonije. My reconstruction of the original find in 1979 would not have been possible without Professor Rendić-Miočević’ s seminal contributions and the generous assistance of friends in Zagreb’ s and Split’ s Archaeological Museums. A full publication of these coins, which have recently been featured in an exhibit held at the Muzej Slavonije in 1997-1999, will be a fitting tribute to his scholarship on Greek-Illyrian coinage. The contents of the Škudlijvac hoard have yet to be studied systematically. According to P. Nisiteo, an antiquarian from Hvar who provided the earliest descriptions of these coins in several letters written between 1835 and 1838, they included 58 large bronzes of Pharos with Head of Zeus / Goat, 47 large bronzes and 2 fractions of Heracleia with Head of Heracles / Bow and club, and 55 large bronzes overstruck with types of uncertain attribution. An unspecified number of these overstrikings bore the legend IONIO. Although Nisiteo was unable to distinguish the undertypes from the second types, he was convinced that this previously unknown legend belonged with the latter. Therefore, he wrote to A. Steinbüchel von Rheinwall (director of Vienna’ s Museum Caesareum), to ask for his opinion, and he even sent him “ some” of the overstrikings from the hoard. Nisiteo subsequently pointed out (in a letter paraphrased by G. Rathgeber) that “ Quaranta esemplari esibiscono il conio del delfino pi&ugrave ; ; o meno chiaro e fra queste (sic) poi 15 presentano ancora traccie delle onde marine.” Did Nisiteo mean that 40 overstrikings only bore a dolphin as a reverse type while 15 other overstrikings (out of a total of 55) showed a dolphin above waves, as I suggested earlier? Or did he imply that on 15 of 40 overstrikings bearing a dolphin a pattern of waves was also visible? Even though these questions cannot be answered, it is certain that the overstrikings included at least 15 specimens of the anepigraphic variety with Youthful male head / Dolphin above waves. I will return to this point later. According to Steinbüchel, who had seen some of these coins, the undertypes belonged to the mint of Lipara and the second types to Pharos. His erroneous attribution to Lipara is understandable in view of the fact that neither he nor Nisiteo had seen original examples of the Ionios issues. Nonetheless, Steinbüchel concluded that Pharos had overstruck the bronzes of another mint, and he was the first to say so unequivocally after an autoptic examination of the evidence at his disposal. Nisiteo (or, less, plausibly, Steinbüchel) also maintained that the overstrikings were struck one more time with the original types, but this has not been confirmed. It is noteworthy that both G. Kubitschek, who later published (albeit without illustrations) the part of the hoard that is now in Osijek, and J. Brunšmid, who discussed the same coins in his 1898 monograph, asserted that the Ionios issues were overstruck by Pharos. Professor Rendić-Miočević’ s analysis, on the other hand, led him to the opposite conclusion, and I myself have thus far agreed with him. If his interpretation is correct, the Ionios issues would be somewhat later than the bronzes of Pharos. Since only one obverse die of Pharos is known from the overstrikings, I argued in my 1979 essay that the minting authority to which the Ionios issues can be attributed (which I identified with Greek settlers on the island of Issa) had acquired a group of newly-minted Pharian coins for the purpose of turning them into Issaean currency at minimum expense. However, it now seems unlikely to me that both anepigraphic dies and dies inscribed with IONIO would have been used for the overstriking. While this may not be ruled out, it seems much more plausible on numismatic grounds that Pharos systematically overstruck with the same obverse die a group of coins including examples of both varieties of the Ionios issues. In addition, the presence among them of a number of specimens of the anepigraphic variety with Male head / Dolphin above waves is chronologically significant, because the same types were overstruck in Dalmatia on Syracusan bronzes with Head of Athena / Star between dolphins probably after 344 B.C. These earlier overstrikings provide a terminus post quem for those in the Škudljivac hoard. Unfortunately, Nisiteo’ s account of the discovery of this deposit leaves much to be desired. All that is known is that these coins were found loose in soil (“ sciolte, sotterrate senza nessun apparecchio” ), and had either a blue-green, or a reddish brown and light brown patination (“ alcune di colore turchino verdognolo pi&ugrave ; ; o meno intenso ; altre di colore bruno-rossiccio e bruno chiaro” ). Nisiteo’ s brief mention of specimens with very different patinas is puzzling, especially when compared to G. Kubitschek’ s 1897 description of the surviving fraction of the assemblage. Kubitschek indicated that these coins were in the same condition and were coated with the same dark green patina (“ La maggior parte dei pezzi... si distingue dal resto.per l’ eguale stato di conservazione e per l’ eguale fino strato di patina verde-oscura.” Since nearly one half of the hoard (75 coins, or 46.29 % of the original aggregate) was dispersed by 1897, Nisiteo’ s assertion that the hoard consisted of three groups of coins with different patinas may never be verified. Moreover, Nisiteo apparently did not realize why these coins comprised such a unique assemblage. At first he was concerned with identifying the provenience of the Heracleian bronzes, and then with the types of the overstrikings. His curiosity in the overstrikings led him to attach greater significance to these coins than to the bronzes of Pharos and Heracleia in the hoard. As a result, subsequent scholars have generally eschewed an analysis of the other components of the Škudljivac hoard. Pending a complete study of the coins now in Osijek, it is clear from Nisiteo’ s descriptions and Kubitschek’ s list that the find contained examples of different issues of both Pharos’ and Heracleia’ s largest denomination in bronze. While the number of obverse dies used for the Ionios issues overstruck by Pharos is still unknown, the presence of the variety with IONIO aswell as the coarse style of the single Pharian obverse die with which the Ionios bronzes wereoverstruck also suggest that the overstrikings belong to an advanced phase in the sequence ofissue of Pharos’ earliest bronze coinage. This assemblage seems to have contained a record ofnearly all the earliest bronze issues of the Greek colonies in Dalmatia.A reexamination of the remaining Pharian bronzes and of the overstrikings in the Škudljivac hoard will also contribute to shed new light on the dating of Pharos’ silver coinage. G. Gorini has recently reaffirmed his suggestion that these silver coins (which he has described as “ obols” ) were minted on a weight standard related to those of Syracuse and Paros. He believes that their types were borrowed from both Syracuse and Pharos, and that the head of Zeus on Pharos’ earliest bronze coins is stylistically akin to that of Zeus Eleutherios on Syracusan bronzes issued after Timoleon. Yet there is little doubt that the types of the heavy Pharian bronzes closely resemble those of the Pharian silver, which can hardly be assigned to the second half of the 4thcentury B.C. Furthermore, the archaeological record shows that virtually no Syracusan coinage issued under the Third Democracy circulated in Dalmatia. Thus, there are no compelling stylistic and metrological reasons to link the earliest bronze issues of Pharos to those of Syracuse with Zeus Eleutherios. Even if Pharos may have adopted a bronze coinage relatively late, its earliestbronze issues (and those of Heracleia) cannot be pushed into the 330s. Gorini’ s view that the minting of bronze coinage by the Greek colonies in Dalmatia began only after the end of Syracusan influence in the area would imply that the Dionysian tyrants prevented the introductionof autonomous coinages by these cities. On the contrary, it may be argued that the influx of Syracusan coins prompted the adoption of a bronze coinage on a similar standard by Pharos and Heracleia at least as early as the mid-4th century.Since the earliest Ionios issues are entirely overstruck upon the Syracusan bronzes with Headof Athena / Star between dolphins, which would not have continued to travel to Dalmatia long after the end of the Dionysian tyranny, the beginning of the Ionios coinage may be dated after c. 344 B.C., a point on which Gorini and I are in agreement. The Ionios bronzes overstruck byPharos in the Škudljivac hoard must be even later, because they include the variety inscribed with IONIO that links this coinage to the island of Vis (Issa), home of the legendary Ionios. Given the fact that a permanent Greek settlement does not seem to have existed on Vis before the Hellenistic period, it is conceivable that the IONIO variety was minted towards the end of the third quarter of the 4th century. Accordingly, our hoard may have been interred c. 325 B.C., and its concealment in the chora of Pharos may be indicative of a period of insecurity for the inhabitants of this colony.

numismatics; coins; Škudljivac; Hvar; Ionios; Pharos; Herakleia

nije evidentirano