Coins from a Greek colony: Money, Exchange and Identity in Olbia Pontike from the Archaic to the Early Hellenistic period

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This research project focuses on examining the monetary development, production and use of coins in the Greek colony Olbia Pontike from the Archaic to Early Hellenistic period, for the first time relating to the broader context of Greek colonization. The project is intended to have an interdisciplinary approach, thereby constructively combining the core competences at Frankfurt Goethe-University in the fields of Black Sea archaeology and ancient numismatics with the proven expert knowledge of our colleagues at the mining museum/Bergbaumuseum in Bochum, within the framework of a metallurgical pilot study. The chosen chronological frame provides the basis for investigating the monetary economy of a Greek polity between phases of colonisation and consolidation at the border with an initially foreign indigenous culture that became more and more familiar over time. In this context, the general and specific characteristics of coinage in Olbia may serve as examples and indicators of acculturation processes within a contact zone, at the same time providing a basis for a supra-regional comparison with more distant regions that were the focus of other Greek colonists. The submitted project, the organisation of which is closely integrated into an already existing German-Ukrainian DFG research project, is based on three main pillars: initially, the focus of investigation will be on the monetary development of Greek colonies within their indigenous contexts. Here in particular, the northern Black Sea region in the 6th/5th century B.C., with the production and use of pre-monetary means of payment, i.e. arrowheads and dolphin coins, offers an ideal basis. Remarkably clear parallels can be drawn to the Magna Graecia, where the use of copper-alloy objects as proto-monetary means of payment is attested in analogous form (aes rude). These characteristics of the origins of coin circulation in different areas of colonization are to be verified in relation to culture-specific phenomena of Greek colonization efforts. The second substantive emphasis is on the question of whether Olbia, as an Apoikia far away from home, employed a monetary system that was completely adapted to the local conditions or whether it attempted to align its system with the main Aegean weight standards. In the first place, basic investigations on metrology, iconography and the metal resources in the North Pontic region will be paramount, and the results will once more be related to the context of Greek colonization and re-evaluated. The third and last focus refers to specifically embedding the Olbian coin system into local, regional and supra-regional contexts. Fundamental issues, such as, for example, the organisation of the local coin circulation, the weight standards and particularly the influence of 'foreign' developments of coinage on the transfer of goods and financial resources in Olbia, will be discussed in the final synthesis.