By Aurel Vîlcu, Marian Neagu and Mihai Dima

 

            Unlike other museums, in whose collections modern issues prevail, the Museum of the Lower Danube Călăraşi holds 25 ancient, Byzantine and mediaeval gold coins. The scientific value of these coins is enhanced by the fact that almost all come from hoards and stray finds.

            The earliest gold coin in the museum collection is a beautiful Callatian stater of the Alexander the Great type, uncovered before 1962 in the location named “Grădiştea Clinci”, on the territory of the commune of Roseţi, Călăraşi county [1] .

            The butch of Byzantine coins comprises six pieces, including a tremissis of Justinian I found in 1969 at Pârjoaia (Izvoarele village, Lipniţa commune, Constanţa county) and a nomisma histamenon issued by Nicephorus III, originating in Păcuiul lui Soare (Ostrov village, Ostrov commune, Constanţa county). The latter is struck from a white metal and still preserves from place to place traces of the thin gold layer covering it.

            In a recent article [2] have been published data on a hoard found by a tractor driver on the Dervent hill (Galiţa village, Ostrov commune, Constanţa county), to which are supposed to belong four pieces acquired by the Museum of the Lower Danube in 1963: a nomisma tetarteron of Basil II and Constantine VIII, two hyperpera from the time of John III Vatatzes and a hyperperon struck by Andronicus II and Michael IX. These coins are indeed preserved in the museum collection, but they were not discovered in the same time and in the same location. On the origin of two of them (nomisma tetarteron and a hyperperon of John III Vatatzes) there is no indication in the inventory book. The other two coins were discovered in the Dervent hill area, but more than 20 years from each other and, maybe, in different places. The hyperperon struck by Andronicus II and Michael IX was mentioned in the numismatic literature [3] in 1961 and, naturally, was discovered before this date. The fourth piece, a Latin imitation after the hyperpera of John III Vatatzes, was uncovered on a small beach, at the foot of the Dervent hill, between the quarry and the poplar grove, in August 1983, by Gh. Niţu from Călăraşi. The same year the coin was given to the museum.

            Therefore, of the pieces that reached the collection of the Museum of the Lower Danube Călăraşi in the early ‘60s, the one struck by Andronicus II and Michael IX is the only one on which we have evidence that it originates in Dervent. Also a hoard could have existed in the area in question, but it is unlikely that it comprised both coins from early 11^th century, and from the 14^th century.

            The mediaeval coins were uncovered in various locations in Eastern Wallachia. Excepting an imitation after a Venetian zecchino from the time of Doge Domenico Contarini, uncovered during the archaeological excavations in Oraşul de Floci (Giurgeni village, Giurgeni commune, Ialomiţa county), and an altun issued by Sultan Murad III, originating in the commune of Jegălia, Călăraşi county, the mediaeval gold coins are part of two hoards found in the localities of Rasa, Grădiştea commune, Călăraşi county (12) and Bora[4], Slobozia, Ialomiţa county (4). The first one is made up of 12 ducats struck in the Netherlands (Holland 1 piece, Utrecht 2 pieces, Westfriesland 2 pieces), the Holly Roman-German Empire (4 pieces), Italian States (Ferrara 1 piece, Venice 1 piece) and Transylvania (1 piece). The Bora Hoard includes three ducats from the Netherlands (Westfriesland 2 pieces, Zeeland 1 piece) and one issued by Rudolph II as King of Hungary. Both hoards include silver coins too.