A "Silversmith's Hoard" from Mesopotamia

Abstract

Sir E. Wallis Budge in his Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum (1922), notices on p. 236 an interesting group of coins and other objects formerly exhibited in a table-case in the Assyrian room which contained “miscellaneous antiquities chiefly from Quyunjik and Nimrûd.” The notice runs “The contents of the shop of a worker in metals, consisting of lead handle of jug, bronze ring, pieces of lead and silver and a group of Persian sigli and coins from Lycia, Samos, Tyre, Aspendus, Cyprus, Sidon, Athens, and Aegina.” The most important piece, the jug-handle (which is, of course, silver and not lead) has been already published by Filow and Paul Jacobsthal. The rest has escaped notice until now, and as it comprises some fragments, and a series of coins, interesting from more than one point of view, it seems worth while to record them more fully. I am indebted to the Keeper of the Department, Mr. C. J. Gadd, for his kind permission to do so here, and to Mr. R. D. Barnett, for help and advice on many points of detail. The coins have now been transferred to the Department of Coins and Medals.