Tezaurul de denari romani imperiali de la Gherăieştii Noi, jud. Neamţ

Abstract

The Hoard of Roman Imperial Denarii from Gherăieștii Noi, Neamț county

In 1977, two hundred seventy-one silver coins, and the vessel in which the hoard had been buried, were discovercd west of the village of Gherăieștii Noi (Gherăicști commune, Neamț county). The wheel-worked vessel is  a small mug made from a fine grey paste and shows analogies with the Daco-Carpian pollery (Fig. 1/a and footnotes 4 — 6).The coins are dated between A.D. 63 — 68 and 184 — 185 (Nero-Commodus). Most of them were issued by Trajan and Marcus Aurelius (67.89%) (Table 1). The nucleus of the Gherăicști hoard is similar to the treasures frorn Costești and Rediu (Moldavia), Bletchley, Vienna, Chasanfakla, Matiusi, Kriačikovka, Podlesnovka and Černitza (footnotes 8 — 13).The hoard consists of 270 denarii and of a „barbarian” denarius (No. 271 ; Fig. 1/c). The „barbarian” denarius is copied after the 2nd-c. denarii and presumably comes frorn the towns in the north of the Black Sea coast (footnote 23). The total weight of the coins after cleaning is of 865.20 g, the average weight being 3.193 g. The emissions of Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius and Commodus have the greatest weight; the smallest weight have the Nero, Vitellius, Vespasianus and Titus coins (Table 2). We also observed the absence of some coin fragments, due — perhaps — to some official attempls at diminishing the weight of the denarii (footnote 16).The numismatic examination shows that the accumulation ends about A.D. 184 — 185. The origin of the coins and the date when they were buried cannot be specified. The hoard belonged to the Carpo-Dacians (see the vessel) and was acumulaled in a period of money devaluation, being buried after Septimius Scverus’ reform, perhaps in the first decades of the 3rd centnry A.D. (footnotes 24 and 39).