Numismatic Finds from the Archaeological Excavations in Dubrovnik

Rad tematizira numizmatičku građu pronađenu prigodom arheoloških istraživanja u povijesnoj jezgri Dubrovnika, i to na području Benediktinskog samostana Sv. Marije od Kaštela i kule Gornji ugao. Riječ je o pojedinačnim nalazima. Datirani su od druge polovice 3. do 20. stoljeća. Najstarije monete pripadaju Rimskom Carstvu. Slijedi bizantski novac, a najbrojnije su dubrovačke kovanice. Otkriveno je ponešto bakrenjaka iz nekoliko islamskih zemalja. Zastupljen je, među inim, novac Venecije, Bara i Kotora.Archaeological excavations in the historic nucleus of Dubrovnik, within the Benedictine Monastery of St Mary of Kaštel and on the site of the Gornji Ugao Tower, have resulted in 101 numismatic finds. They include the oldest Roman imperial coins from the first decades of the second half of the third century (Cat. no. 1-4), as well as Late-Antiquity coins (Cat. no. 5-6, 8-17). These are chronologically followed by the anonymous Byzantine fals from the eleventh century (Cat. no. 18-20), and from a somewhat later period several coins from the Islamic lands: the copper coinage of the Sultanate of Rum (Iconium; Mas’ud II, 1284-1308) (Ca t. no. 22), Ilkhanid state (Abu Sa’īd, 1317-1335) (Cat. no. 23) and the Mamluc sultanate (al-Malik an-Nāşir Muhammad I, 1293-1294, 1299-1309, 1310-1341) (Cat. no. 24). They circulated in the Dubrovnik region during the time when the trade with the ‘infidels’ was prohibited. Judging by the here analysed numismatic material, Venetian money seemed not to have circulated in Dubrovnik in larger amounts, as testified by only four samples (Cat. no. 27-30). Money from the other parts of Italy is even rarer. We have recorded a single copper coin from Aquila (Cat. no. 26) minted for Ferdinand I of Naples (1458-1494). The finds include several samples of the Kotor coinage (Cat. no. 32-33) and of Bar (Cat. no. 31), along with a French copper coin of Louis XIII (1610-1643) (Cat. no. 70). Expectedly, the money of the Dubrovnik Republic dominates the material excavated on the sites (Cat. no. 34-69). The rest of the better preserved samples date from the latter half of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century and include the coinage of Austria (Cat. no. 71-78), Italy (Cat. no. 79) and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Cat. no. 80). Apart from contributing to a more comprehensive numismatic mapping of Dubrovnik, the here analysed numismatic finds provide an insight into the monetary systems whose money circulated in the Dubrovnik region from the Roman era, the medieval times up to the modern period. Particularly noteworthy is the Islamic copper coinage which has probably reached Dubrovnik through trade with the Levant