New places with a large concentration of coins in the valley of Middle Mesta in the 6th – 4th centuries BC

Abstract

The purpose of this report is to introduce new information about the coin circulation in the valley of the Middle Mesta River in the 6th–4th centuries BC. The main focus of the report is to disclose two new places with a large concentration of coins, hypothetically defined as markets, as well as to present some unpublished coins originating from the Middle Mesta region and their accurate compositional analysis of alloys (in %). The analysis was performed using a compact X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyser (Olympus the Xpert, XP-6500-CC). This method of non-destructive assay identifies a wide range of alloys including precious metals. Its main purpose is to trace the amount of silver as well as the amount of other elements in the alloy and the quantitative ratio between them. Statistical analysis of the data in a unified database could reveal much of the missing information on the economic and technological aspects of ancient coin production, as well as on the origin of the raw material.