Отново за съкровището от Чапаево, дн. Царски извор (IGCH 468)

Again on the hoard from Chapaevo, today’s Tsarski Izvor (IGCH 468)

Abstract

The hoard was published in 1985 (Русева 1985, 28-50). Later K. Dimitrov discussed it once again in a paper (Димитров 1995, 133-136). The hoard has not been noticed by the Czech I. Militky who, in Pistiros VI, ambitiously undertook commenting on Hellenistic hoards from Ancient Thrace deposited in the third century BC (Militky 2016, 138-150). However, the tetradrachms from Chapaevo were not included among them. Those I publish again here in the light of the newest studies on this type of Early Hellenistic coinages.
In 1958 a coin hoard containing 29 tetradrachms entered the depot of NIAM – BAS under the Inv. N CCI-1958. It was found in the vicinities of Chapaevo village (presently Tsarski Izvor), Gorna Oryahovitsa region. The tetradrachms have been issued by various mints in the Hellenistic world and are dating from the time of Alexander III, Philip III Arrhidaeus and the Diadochi Demetrius Poliorcetes, Lysimachus and Seleucus I Nicator. Twenty eight of the coins have been struck in the types of Alexander’s silver coinage (head of Heracles/ Zeus Aetophoros enthroned), and the twenty-ninth one bears the name of Lysimachus and the types of his royal silver coinage (head of deified Alexander with the horns of Amon/ Athena Nikephoros enthroned). Twenty pieces are signed with the name of Alexander, another six bear the name of Alexander’s successor Philip III Arrhidaeus engraved, and another two – the name of the Diadoch Seleucus I Nicator. It was already mentioned, that only one from the Chapaevo coins is a royal issue of Lysimachus with his name and types. Another eight tetradrachms of Alexander’s type signed with the names of Alexander (4), Philip III Arrhidaeus (2) and Seleucus I Nicator (2) were struck under the control of the first Seleucid as a satrap and king of the Eastern Imperial provinces. This more precise interpretation of the largest group of coins from Chapaevo – the Seleucid one, is possible thanks to the latest studies on the Seleucid coinages, updating Edward Newell’s interpretation of a large number of emissions and coin centres of the early Seleucids.
The surface of the silver from Chapaevo shows signs of prolonged stay in the ground. Probably the tetradrachms had been left in a metal container before they were buried as on some of them, together with soil particles, one can find also oxidized metal bits.
The Catalogue of the 29 tetradrachms from the Chapaevo hoard (presently Tsarski Izvor) shows the categorical predominance of coins struck in the imperial mints of Alexander and his successors located in the Near and the further East. More so, the tetradrachms from Babylonia (11), Susiana (1) and Media (1), and also from the non-localized Atelier 4 in the same region (Cat. N 22) represent more than 48% or nearly half of the entire composition of the hoard.
Though we do not know it in its entirety, the composition of the hoard from Chapaevo (IGCH 468) is sufficiently symptomatic to make us accept its eastern nature, taking into account the predominance of coins minted under the control of Seleucus Nicator during his first and second Babylonian Satrapy. These are the six Alexanders from Babylonia (Cat. NN 23-27) together with the tetradrachm from Ecbatana (Cat. N 28) to which we can add the Babylonian coins from the time of Alexander, Philip III and Antigonus Monophthalmus (Cat. NN 11-15) and also the tetradrachm of Susa from the reign of Philip III Arrhidaeus (Cat. N 16).
The hoard closest in composition and date to the Chapaevo hoard seems to be the “Seleucus I hoard”, collected from commercial traffic in Western Europe and America. It was published in 2010. According to its publisher – Brad Nelson, the coins constituted the military exchequer – first of Demetrius Poliorcetes and later of Seleucus Nicator – and were concealed in the dramatic 281 BC, a year that cost the life of the last two of Alexander’s Diadochi. We accept the same date for the deposit of Chapaevo, relying on both the predominant number of Eastern and Seleucid coins in it, as well as the alexander bearing the symbol of club (Cat. No. 3 by Müller 135), present also in the Seleucus I h. (1000-1003). In my belief, the short-lived emission of alexanders in question (see table 2 above in the text), with which the Argives have probably initiated the Alexander’s type of coinage in their city, was issued on one occasion by the engravers of Demetrius in the atelier of Argos, Peloponnese, together with the abundant coinage of the neighboring Corinth on the eve of Demetrius’ campaign to the Anatolian Antigonid lands (286 BC). I have explained my motives in detail in the commentary on the alexanders with club as well as the other tetradrachms and drachms of Seleucus I hoard attributed by B. Nelson and/or the experts of the electronic sites of Classical Numismatic Group – in my opinion rather groundlessly and unwarrantedly – to the ocean of unknown Western Anatolian issues (see table 3 above in the text). My final conviction in my correctness came precisely with the advent of the Seleucus I h. in whose composition one can discover, hardly by accident, the tetradrachms with the symbol of club. Within this ancient deposit (representing the military exchequer of Demetrius Poliorcetes accumulated for his campaigns in Anatolia in 286 BC) where the issues of the Antigonid prevail with the alexanders from Corinth being the most numerous, the disputable tetradrachms bearing the symbol of club are in their very natural environment next to all the other issues of Demetrius, minted with Alexander’s and his own royal coin types by his royal ateliers in Greece and Macedonia.
The hoard from Chapaevo presents still another interesting emission of Early Hellenistic alexanders – Cat. N 27. With this the ancient deposit from northeastern Thrace is once again relating to “Seleucus I h”. The emission in question is comprised of tetradrachms with the name of Philip III of the variant Price P229. Its monetary control is the symbol of pentalpha in the left coin field on the reverse and its obverse die is the same as the one of the seleucid coin from WSM 780 signed with the name of the first Seleucid and localized by E. T. Newell in Carrhae, the Antique Harran, Northern Mesopotamia. In their Corpus (SCI), A. Houghton and C. Lorber associate the emission in question with Seleucia-on-Tigris (SCI 118) dating it from ca. 300 BC, however with the proviso that the Seleucid’s engravers in the new Seleucid metropolis had rehabilitated an old die from the time of Philip III coming probably, but not necessarily, from the atelier in Carrhae.
The latest coins in the hoard of Chapaevo are the very Seleucid’s tetradrachms signed in the name of Alexander, Philip and Seleucus, the tetradrachm of Sardis of the types and in the name of Lysimachus (Cat. N 21), and – of course – the Poliorcetes’ tetradrachm from the atelier in Argos, Peloponnese (Cat. N 3). These coins probably arrived in northeastern Thrace together with their owner – participant in the armies of Lysimachus, and after his death near Corupedium (281) – of Seleucus I. After the dramatic events in Asia Minor and the Straits in 281/280 – early 279 BC, marked by the murder of Seleucus near Lysimachia and the subsequent demise of his killer in a battle with the Celts, the owner of the silver from Chapaevo must have acquired it as loot or as salary for taking part in the battles between the Alexander’s successors, and then he must have taken the tetradrachms in the eponymous village, where they were buried as a family hoard (keimelia) as late as ca. 280 BC. This chronological repére is determined by the coins in the Chapaevo hoard themselves, where post-280 BC issues from Macedonia, the Western Pontus and Anatolia are absent – whether municipal or royal.