Келтски монети от района на Враца

Celtic coins from the region of Vratsa

Abstract

The minting of coins classified as Celtic according to their type and their circulation in the territories on both sides of the Lower Danube have been a subject of various studies by Balkan and other scholars. However, despite the growing record on numismatic data and provenance we have to note that a number of questions – as locating the places of striking such coins, as well as a precise definition of more accurate chronological framework, are still a challenge for researchers on this topic.
A little known fact is that in the region of Vratsa in antiquity Celtic coins circulated as well. Years ago in the vicinity of the town of Vratsa in Bulgaria, near the village of Zgorigrad more than ten silver coins were found. They belong to the type represented mainly by some Romanian scholars as Vîrteju-Bucureşti and determined by Western scholars as Sattelkopfpferd type. Here we present two of these coins (Pl. LIV, fig. 1 and fig. 2). Together with them, a silver ingot of an almost circular shape was also found, its weight of about 63 g (Pl. LIV, fig. 3).
This type of coins is among the most widespread along the Lower Danube evidenced by dozens of coin hoards and many single specimens from Romania and Bulgaria. The largest number of hoards containing silver coins of the type here discussed – more than 20, have been found in Romania between the Danube and the Carpathians. In the past, this circumstance gave grounds mainly to C. Preda to believe that they were issued by a significant tribal union of the Getae there, or the so-called Geto-Dacians. Nine more significant hoards of coins of the same type are known officially from Bulgaria. From Northwestern Bulgaria such coins are known from the large coin hoard found near the modern village of Slana Bara, district of Vidin. Along with the tetradrachms of various Hellenistic kings and Celtic imitations of such tetradrachms, there were also 13 coins of type here in question.
The coins here discussed are of a slightly or more convex form and their average weight is about 7 g. They are defined as didrachms. It is considered they are imitations of the well-known tetradrachms of Philip II (Pl. LIV, fig. 4).
A matrix from the collection of the Numismatic Museum in Ruse has been recently published. It bears the same image as on the obverse of coins of the Sattelkopfpferd type (Pl. LIV, fig. 5). The image on the matrix is positive – for preparing negative coin dies, with which the imitations of this type were struck. In the first publication it was supposed that this positive matrix was found probably in the region of Ruse, which gave grounds to assume that the silver coins of that type were minted by the tribes of the Getae in the region of Ruse. Indeed, the image on the positive matrix is exactly like the images on coins of this type from the coin hoards, found in the vicinity of the modern village of Pirgovo, district of Ruse and known to science as coin hoards Pirgovo 1 and Pirgovo 2 (Pl. LIV, fig. 6). Until now it has been also considered that the date of these silver coins is from the late 2nd – early 1st c. BC.
According to the information of the author here, however, the positive matrix or hub mentioned was certainly found in the region of the modern town of Vratsa in Northwestern Bulgaria, which is a prerequisite for other more reliable conclusions.
The arguments that the discovery of a large number of coins of the same type might be taken as grounds to assume that they were minted within the area of finding are not well founded. In this regard here is mentioned another hoard of such coins found in the area of the town of Lovech in Bulgaria. It contained more than six hundred coins (Pl. LV, Fig. 7).
So far, published coins of that type are invariably presented by researchers from the Western countries as coins struck by unknown Eastern Celtic tribes along the Lower Danube.
The most familiar Celtic tribes from the Lower Danube area are the Scordisci. But coins considered as struck by the Scordisci near Singidunum (today Belgrade) are relatively well known and the coins of the Sattelkopfpferd type concerned here do not appear in these studies. Then which Celts issued the coins here discussed? Based on the information of the ancient author Strabo (VII, 5, 12) on the separation of the tribes of the Scordisci into the Great Scordisci (Megaloi Skordiskoi) and the Little Scordisci (Mikroi Skordiskoi), as the Mikroi Skordiskoi inhabited the lands east of Margos (the Morava River), the author here supports the suggestions of M. Domaradski that perhaps the lands of the Mikroi Skordiskoi were in the territory of the Triballi to the Iskar River and that the Scordisci conquered the Thracian tribes of the Triballi, who were politically dependent on the Scordisci.
In this respect the presentation here of the place of striking Celtic coins of the type Sattelkopfpferd will have a great importance. The discovery of certain coins, Celtic in their nature, and a silver ingot near the modern town of Vratsa in Bulgaria, finding a positive matrix also near Vratsa – in fact a hub for making negative coin dies, and also having in mind the location of Vratsa in one meeting spot in terms of ancient metal mining, which is the western part of the Balkan Mountains (Stara Planina) – with proven gold and silver extraction in the antiquity, give the author here reasons to believe that coins of exactly this type were struck within the ancient settlement on the site of the modern town of Vratsa.
Whether coins here presented were struck by the Scordisci or by a king for the Scordisci? In the author’s opinion, the silver coins of this type, known until now as the type of Vîrteju-Bucureşti or Sattelkopfpferd, were struck by King Kavaros in his state for the tribes of Mikroi Skordiskoi located between the rivers Timok and Iskar in the second half of the 3rd century BC.
The place of striking coins of that type, according to the author here, was the ancient settlement in the place of the modern town of Vratsa, which in the Hellenistic Age held the status of polis and was urbanized by King Kavaros. In 242 BC, by order of King Kavaros, the ancient settlement received the name of Alexandropolis in honour of Alexander the Great. The reverse of the coins here concerned probably displays a mark of their place of striking or, in fact, of their mint, by a single large letter A engraved schematically on the image of the rider on a horseback (Pl. LV, fig. 8). This letter A can be interpreted as the initial letter of the name of Alexandropolis. Most likely the coins presented here were struck between 242 and 218 BC by King Kavaros for the tribes of the Little Scordisci (Mikroi Skordiskoi), inhabiting his own state.
Some emissions of the same type of coins have on their obverse still another image defined by C. Preda as a head of the goddess Roma. However, M. Kostial considers that image as one with portrait features. The author here supposes that it is probably a barbarized Celtic image of the young King Kavaros (Pl. LV, fig. 9), because the other coins of this king bearing his name and royal title are in a fine Greek style.
The concentration of coins of the Sattelkopfpferd type mostly in the region of Ruse south of the Danube and in the territories between the Danube and the Carpathians probably reflects the intensive trade contacts between both sides of the Danube in the state of King Kavaros. Especially hoards of this type of coins found north of the Balkan Mountains and north of the Danube River can also be interpreted as treasured cash prizes given by King Kavaros to some commanders or warriors distinguished in battles, who returned later to their native places.
The work also presents a more accurate location of the tribe of the Little Scordisci (the Mikroi Skordiskoi) in the territories between the rivers Morava and Timok to the Iskar river, as their center was the ancient settlement at the site of the modern town of Vratsa in Northwestern Bulgaria (Pl. LV, fig. 10 – map).
For the first time, as far as it is known up to now, a place of striking Celtic coins on the Balkans has been localized and a more precise chronology of these coins has been suggested. The silver coins here discussed can now be defined either as coins of Vratsa type or coin type of Sattelkopfpferd, struck by King Kavaros in his own state for the tribes of the Little Scordisci (Mikroi Skordiskoi).
With the proposed thesis, I hope future studies will locate the spots of minting some other Celtic coins on the Balkans. Now the direction of research might be a bit different – these coins had been issued by King Kavaros in his own state, and they were not a self-manifestation of some Celtic tribes along the Lower Danube.