On the Coin Circulation in the South-Western Taurica in the Late Byzantine Period: A Few New Numismatic Rarities

Abstract

The specifics of the monetary circulation of the Taurica during the classical Middle Ages are well known to modern specialists in Byzantine numismatics. It is characterized by the diversity of the money market and a wide variety of issuers. There appeared new discoveries expanding the geography and direction of the Crimean numismatic monuments from the Late Byzantine Period and replenishing them with important information. Among the numismatic finds from the period when the Byzantine Empire collapsed and, later, restored, there are local issues along with, so to speak, the money “brought from across the sea,” which circulated in the markets of the Taurica in this or that way. The coins in question comprised of the money minted by the Empires of Trebizond and Nicaea, Crusader states, and renovated Byzantium. Today, the said interpretation gets extra support from the finds to be introduced into the scholarship: the coins of Megaloi Komnenoi, such as a follaro of John III (1342–1344) and aspri of Manuel III (1390–1417) and John IV (1446–1458); a hyperpyron nomisma of Emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes (1222–1254) of Nicaea; a denier tournois of Doux Guillaume (William) I de la Roche (1280–1287) of Athens; a denaro tornese minted by the Genoese government of Chios in 1477–1487; a copper tetarteron of Andronikos II Palaiologos (1282–1328); and some other finds. These new coins are important evidence of trade and economic relations of the south-western Taurica with the regions of the Southern Black Sea, the Balkans and the Mediterranean and an impressive illustration of the administrative and political processes in the Black Sea area in Late Byzantine Period.