A Debreceni Déri Múzeum Évkönyve 1966-1967 (Debrecen, 1968)

B. Sey Katalin: Köztársasági éremlelet Körösszakállról

Katalin Sey, В. Republican Coins Found at Körösszakái A great number of coins, totalling 271 pieces in all, was found at Körösszakáll in 1965, in the county of Hajdú-Bihar. This material contains republican denarii and 2 coins from Dyrrhachium, one of them a contemporary forgery. The coins were found in the village, on the bank of the Groboly rivulet. A settlement is supposed to have been there, since a great number of wheel-produced and roughly shaped pottery fragments were found very near the site. The finds were taken to the Hungarian National Museum at Budapest. A description of these coins and an explanation of the stamps on them is given below. The oldest piece of the material dates back to 187-175 B.C. The name of the person who had it made is not marked on it. From the years 137-134 B.C. the number of denarii shows a steady increase and thereby a continual inflow of money until the year of closure. Serratus coins appear in the material from 112 B.C.; there is also a subaeratus denarius in the corpus. The denarius of L. Cossutius (Sydenham 790) marks the most recent of the coins. It was made in 72 B.C., so the denarii must have been deposited at this time or in subsequent years. A chart was made of several 1st century coins found east of the river Tisza, which indicates a turbulent period in the life of peoples living there. The finds enlisted in notes 11-15, and the data from the year 80 B.C. show that coins were deposited in this area nearly avery year. At times the hiding of coins seems to have been done more often: 5 finds were reported from the years 72, 49, 42 B.C., and 8 from 38 B.C. The hiding of the latter may perhaps be accounted for by the movement of the Dacián people. Such a great number of coin-finds allows the inference that these were by no means the depositories of Roman merchants, but the hidden money of the local population acquired through the interchange of commodities. A map of the sites of finds shows that all of them were located by rivers or at least in the vicinity of rivers. The following material was used for comparison: finds from 1. Jászdózsa, 2. Szatmárnémeti, 3. Nagykágya, 4. Körösszakái, 5. Békésgyula, 6. Tövis, 7. Bethlen, 8. Gelencze, one from the neighbourhood of Brasov, one from the county of Hunyad and one from Transylvania. They have one thing in common: the first pieces in all of them date from about 187 B.C., the last ones from 74-31 B.C., except for those of Nagykágya, in which the earliest pieces date from some time around 268, and those of Gelencze, where 126 B.C. is the earliest date. The comparison reveals an uninterrupted import of denarii into the territory. The influx is likely to have started at about 100 B.C., and new coins were introduced alongside with old ones still in circulation. The circulation of money was greatest between 90—80 B.C. — as the finds investigated confirm — and the number of coins shows a decrease in later years. The continuity, however, is uninterrupted, which is shown by the closing dates of the various finds. The question arises how the introduction of republican denarii into this territory remained uninterrupted during the 1st century B.C., and sporadic in neighbouring areas, e. g. the later province of Pannónia. The closing year of the finds at Körösszakái cannot be associated with any historical event. Owing to the fact that there are several other finds from the same year, it is probable, that population movement was more intensive in the area east of the Tisza than elsewhere. It may be the consequence of the growing Dacián power. 90