Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Vandal coins in the Holy Land


Ancient synagogue of Gush Halav (el Jish)

Careful detective work by numismatist Gabriela Bijovsky (Israel Antiquities Authority) unexpectedly led to quite remarkable results - the first ever identification of Vandal kingdom coins in the Holy Land.


The discovery
Gush Halav is located seven kilometres north-west of Safed in Upper Galilee, Israel. Excavations were carried out in the lower synagogue area in 1977 and 1978 by the American School of Oriental Research, under the direction of professors E.M. MeyersC.L. Meyers, and James F. Strange.

A hoard of about two thousand very small minimi coins was found in a humble cooking pot. The broken vessel was laying near a plaster floor that belongs to the last phase of the synagogue. The building collapsed in the earthquake of 551 A.D. and was abandoned. (The region is geologically volatile as it is near the massive continental plate boundary, the East African Rift Valley and devastating earthquakes are frequent.)

The re-examination of the coins from Gush Halav synagogue hoard was first published by G. Biovsky in  'Atiqot XXXV (1998). She has since continued her work on the subject and is currently (2011-2012) publishing more academic works on Vandalic coinage in the Holy Land.


Difficult to identify
It is no wonder that the unique identity of the coins was not noticed when the excavations were first published by two eminent scholars, in a preliminary report by numismatist R.S. Hansen (1979) and a comprehensive report by J. Raynor (1990).

"Most of the types are crudely manufactures, have no names, or are so illegible that theri dating and origin are only approximate."
G. Bijovsky 1998:81


International co-operation
The accumulation of information from different sources, in this case from Carthage excavations, and international co-operation between scholars led to the wonderful identification bringing also Holy Land to the picture with the short-lived Christian North-African kingdom. Bijovsky thanks in her important numismatic study a leading expert on Vandal coins, H. Mostecky, who first draw her attention to these humble coins.


What minimi?


Hoard of small Byzantine coins from Karm er-Ras, Israel

The minimi was used in handfuls put in small bags with the value marked on them in nummi and apparently only the weight was important with such small change.

Like today's collection of euros in ones purse may include coins from many different countries apparently also in the international Byzantine period the coins could have been minted somewhere around Eastern Mediterranean and include imitations and even frauds, nobody cared.

Bijovsky tells in her article that "among the coins were four tiny issues of the Vandal king Trasamund (496-523 CE), representing a Victory to the left, holding a palm branch."  She also noted a very rare coin from the  Domino Nostro series which definitely comes from Carthage. Some of the tiny coins have crosses, "a cross potent in reel-border" and there is a coin with a Christogram.

Arian Christian presence in Justinian period Holy Land!

Collection?

The excavators suggest that the hoard was actually a collection jar for visitors who would drop into it the smallest coins they had with them.

In the light of Bijovsky's studies it is now possible to put this hoard in a pot to the horizon of other such hoards found around the Mediterranean. Because it seems that none of the hoards listed by Bijovsky from North Africa or elsewhere are from synagogues or churches the idea of religious gift seems less plausible.

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