Ancient Coins: Coinage of the Barbarian Invaders

[Viggen]

In the fourth century, the Eurasian Steppe was a vast sea of grass extending for thousands of miles, from Mongolia in the East to the Danube in the West. Nomadic tribes roamed the steppe, fighting over grazing rights, women and honor. Occasionally a leader would emerge, unite the tribes, and lead them to pillage the farms and sack the cities of their more “civilized” neighbors, who called these nomads “barbarians”. 

 

Barbarians are glamorous. Therefore, coins of the Migration era with a definite barbaric attribution usually command a higher price than the equivalent imperial issues they imitate. But “definite attribution” is a problem, since experts may disagree whether the style (or, rarely, the provenance or pedigree) identifies a particular coin as imperial or “pseudo-imperial.” Collectors must often content themselves with descriptions like “uncertain Germanic tribe” or “unbekannte munzstätte” (“unknown mint”, since these coins are most likely to appear in the sales of German dealers.) In auction catalogues and reference books, barbaric coins fall at the end of Roman or the beginning of Medieval. Grierson and Blackburn is the standard reference work in English, but much of the relevant numismatic literature is in German, French and Italian.

 

Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek…

[guy]

Interesting article. One had to scroll down on this link to find it, however:

 

http://www.coinweek.com/featured-news/ancient-coins-coinage-barbarian-invaders/

 

 

guy also known as gaius