Coinage in its Archaeological Context

Abstract

Abstract This article describes some uses and limitations of numismatic evidence and the specialist methodology, while illustrating the directions in which current research is developing. Coins are both archaeological artefacts and historical documents. The designs on a coin should be regarded as complementing the inscriptions and from time to time as conveying a message. It is important to distinguish between the date of production of a coin, and the date of its loss. The intensity of use of Anglo-Saxon coinage was probably less than it would be in the later Middle Ages, and the periods of circulation were much shorter. There are five English coin types known from four different sites, all of them with some archaeological context. In the coming decades, greater emphasis will probably be placed on the wider economic and social implications to be drawn from the use of coinage.