Late Roman and Early Byzantine Solidi of the Stiernstedt Ancient Coin Collection

Abstract

This is a study of 33 Late Roman and Early Byzantine solidi from the period 394-565 that are kept in the Stiernstedt Ancient Coin Collection. The solidi were acquired in the late nineteenth century by the co-founding president of the Swedish Numismatic the Stiernstedt Ancient Coin Collection (Heilborn 1882). The entire collection was acquired at a sale from the Bukowski auction house in Stockholm by the Swedish-Texan antebellum cattle baron and gilded age banker Swante Magnus Swenson the same year. Together with many other coins and various prehistoric objects acquired in Sweden, the Stiernstedt Ancient Coin Collection was donated by Swenson in 1891 to the State of Texas under the name of the Swenson Collection. The Stiernstedt Ancient Coin Collection is currentlykept at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. The study concludes with a catalogue of the 33 solidi. In the commentary, I have tried to identify and recontextualize the solidi by comparing them to recorded hoards from Scandinavia and the European Continent as well as unprovenanced solidi in Swedish and European collections.