Réunion via vidéoconférence royale, le 15 janvier 2022

Vergadering via videoconferentie op 15 januari 2022

Cette communication dresse l'inventaire jamais tenté jusqu'ici des cas de brockages pour le monde grec. Par "brockage" (ou "incuse accidentelle"), on entend cet accident de frappe qui fait adhérer le flan frappé au coin de revers et dès lors imprimer au revers du nouveau flan placé sur l'enclume le type du droit en négatif. Un catalogue de plus de 60 exemplaires a été réuni avec une très forte concentration des cas pour trois ateliers : Dyrrachium et Apollonia, soit les deux ateliers sûrement utilisés par les Romains pour payer leurs troupes en provenance de Brundusium (Brindisi) et avant qu'elles n'empruntent la Via Egnatia, ainsi que Marseille. Dans les trois cas, il s'agit de monnaies d'argent d'un poids similaire à celui du denier républicain et d'un phénomène qui concerne avant tout les dernières décennies du IIe s. et les premières du Ier s. av. notre ère. Ces similitudes invitent à suspecter, sur la base d'un indice certes ténu, une intervention romaine à Marseille également. Un autre aspect important de cette recherche concerne les coins de droit dans la mesure où, dans trois cas assurés au moins, il est clair que le coin de droit en négatif du revers diffère de celui en positif du droit. La seule explication raisonnable est celle de coins de droit présentant côte à côte plusieurs gravures du même type, loin des schémas habituels de représentation : celui de coins de droit circulaires et monotype.

Liesbeth CLAES, coins for a save passage? A coin deposit from Berlicum (Nl)

In February 2017, two brothers, Nico and Wim van Schaijk, found 4 silver denarii and 103 Roman bronze coins near a former ford crossing the river Aa (South of the Netherlands). Half of the coins of the hoard can be identified. The other half is too worn. Except for one Republican denarius, the coins’ starting date is the reign of Vespasian and the closing coins date from the reign of Marcus Aurelius.

Combining the evidence derived from the archaeological and geographical context and the composition of the deposition, the coins can be identified as a continuous votive deposition, where several people have deposited individually a coin or more when crossing the Aa river. Remarkably, three distinctive categories of coin messages are noticed in this coin deposition, as if an intentionally selection of coin types had been made. The main group, depicting images related to war and victories, consists of more than 20%; 15% of the coins have images related to cash-handouts and the correct administation of the imperial mint, and 10% refer to religious acts and sacral attributes.

Depositions in watery places, such as a swamp, a well or a river, appear already in prehistorical times. These prehistoric people were donating foreign valuables, but also armoury. An archaeological excavation in October 2018 by the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands showed that the Roman votive deposit had no prehistorical origin. No comparable coin type selection in votive depositions found at the Northern limes are known otherwise, making it difficult to draw conclusions, but we may tentatively suggest that the ones who were donating a coin, or at least a little bit more than 20%, anchored their gift, featuring a military message, into a familiar ancestral habit. and in coinage at various points past and present as of 2021. Some countries have also done away with the motto on their coinage, but have continued to use French and a similar tripartite motto within their national emblems. These coins and the use of the motto show a continued influence of France in the economic and social spheres of former colonies and are worth further study.

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