Byzantine coins from Scotland: New perspectives’ at the Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles Symposium
Resource type
Conference paper (unpublished)
Abstract
For more than a century, antiquarians and numismatists have noted Byzantine coins discovered sporadically across Scotland by chance and by metal-detecting. These single finds of exclusively copper-alloy denominations have frequently been dismissed as modern losses, and little consideration has been given to the coins within the archaeological contexts of their findspots or their significance as a corpus. This paper will reassess these coins alongside the wealth of medieval data collected by Treasure Trove Scotland, as well as recent historical and archaeological scholarship, to argue that the majority of Byzantine coins currently known from Scotland are the result of contemporary loss. Both geographical and chronological patterns of deposition shed light on political and trade connections, either direct or indirect, between Northern Britain and the eastern Mediterranean from the sixth through the eleventh centuries.
Event title
Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles - Symposium on Money and Coinage The Use and Function of Coinage in Britain, Ireland, and the Continent c. 500–1800.
Publisher
The British Academy
Rights statement
In Copyright