Roman Coin Hoards across Frontiers

The book presents an introduction and thirteen other chapters on the hoarding of Roman coin outside the Roman Empire from c. 30 BC to AD 518, and later, where appropriate. It rests upon data gathered for the Coin Hoards of the Roman Empire Project, which is creating an online database of all known Roman coin hoards for this period. The introductory chapter draws out the thematic cohesion of the book around the topics of the export, use, and deposition of Roman coin beyond the Empire, while also enhancing awareness of the geographical and chronological disparities in the data, and identifying various proxies for the movement of coin where hoards do not survive. The later chapters are grouped into four sections. The first contains select studies on some aspects of deposition within the Empire, as to understand what goes on beyond the frontiers one also needs to grasp behaviour within. The second section presents regional studies from north, central, and eastern Europe, focusing on Southern Scandinavia, Germany, and Eastern Europe. The third section is devoted to the East, both close to, and far away from, the Empire. The chapters range from the eastern part of the Roman Empire and its adjacent regions, including Caucasian Iberia and Armenia, to India. The fourth section expands explanatory frameworks by looking outside the Roman hoard evidence itself, offering insights from a later period and from metallurgy. A final chapter presents an analysis of the key textual evidence for the export of coin outside the Empire.