A cache of gold coins dating to the late fifth century B.C. has been discovered in the ancient Greek city of Notion, located on the west coast of Anatolia.
According to The New York Times, the find was made by Christopher Ratté of the University of Michigan and his team. The coins were stored in an olpe, a type of small jug, and buried in the corner of a dwelling beneath the courtyard of a house from the third century B.C.
Archaeology.org, has reported that the coins have been identified as Persian darics, named either after the Old Persian word for gold or Darius I, who ruled the Persian Empire from 521 to 486 B.C. These coins feature an image of the Persian king in a long tunic, kneeling and holding a bow and long spear, while the backs of the coins are blank except for a punch mark.
Ratté explained that such coins were typically used to pay mercenaries, suggesting that the cache likely represents a soldier’s savings, hidden during a period of warfare in a contested frontier zone.
“No one ever buries a hoard of coins, especially precious metal coins, without intending to retrieve it,” he said. “So only the gravest misfortune can explain the preservation of such a treasure.”
Source: archaeology.org
