BYZANTINE COPPER COINS IN DARK AGE BRITAIN

Many of you will have seen the recent Netflix film The Dig about the discovery of Sutton Hoo. There is one notable scene on the excavation when Charles Phillips exclaims that Saxon England “was no longer in the Dark Ages”. Indeed, among the material found were Byzantine objects, most notably a large silver platter stamped with the monogram of the Byzantine emperor Anastasius I (AD 491- 518). Many of the Byzantine finds from Britain are high value pieces, such as gold coins, and suggest long distance trade in exotic items (Fig 1). 

However, in recent decades there has been the discovery of more prosaic material. Excavations at Tintagel and Bantham have uncovered much Mediterranean pottery of the period, but also many copper Byzantine coins from the 6th and 7th centuries have been recorded with the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS: www.finds. org.uk) by metal detectorists.

 In academic circles it was long considered that Byzantine copper coins found in Britain were later imports, brought back to Britain by tourists, clergymen and soldiers who had been in and around the eastern Mediterranean in the last couple of centuries. In many cases this can be shown to be true, as the discovery of many such pieces in urban gardens attests – one can imagine children being allowed to play with such curios, resulting in their loss. The eminent scholar George Boon showed how the vast majority of ‘exotic coins’ supposedly found in ancient contexts were in fact later intruders. (1) However, after this, it became normal to reject an ancient context for any Byzantine copper coin found in Britain; but this was to do Boon a dis-service, because he acknowledged that some could easily have been ancient losses.

When I began working for the PAS in 2006, I was intrigued to see a small number of these coins appearing on the Database. This led to an initial study for publication in 2009 covering around 30 coins; this helped form the basis for a wider study by Cecile Morrison in 2014. (2)  I am now preparing another article as the number of copper coins which I think have ancient contexts (from excavation and PAS) has risen to almost 60. 

These coins range in date from AD 498 to around AD 655, that is from Anastasius to Constans II. I break the coins down into three periods. The first period includes 25 postreform coins of the reigns of Anastasius (Fig 2), Justin I (Fig 3) and Justinian the Great (Fig 4) (AD 498-565). Anastasius and Justin I laid the financial foundation for the remarkable military and building activity of Justinian, notably his reconquest of North Africa and Italy, and his construction of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Many of the coins from this period are folles with the large M on the reverse, denoting 40 nummi.