I found this news about Romania Koson coin that I think worth mentioning in my blog. The koson is a controversial currency as it includes equal influences from Greeks and Romans, which makes exact provenance hard to determine. One koson weighs little over 8g, which is higher than the weight of the gold coins used by the Romans. The three toga-dressed people on one face of the coin could be Roman citizens of Republican Rome and the vulture keeping a wreath in its claws could be the symbol of a barbarian monarch.
Although the first koson were found near Orastie, the coins are made of a gold ally, but Dacians, the forerunners of today’s Romanians who inhabited the area, never minted gold coins. Their coins and jewelries were manufactured of silver. This is why the most plausible theory about the coins’ provenance is that they were minted under some Dacian king named Koson, somewhere after the collapse of the kingdom of legendary Dacian king Burebista and his centralised state. Historians argue that the koson were scattered in the same area because Dacian King Decebal did so with his treasury in the face of Roman danger in 106.
Photo by Wikimedia: Andesite sanctuaries
on 19 September 2009, a sizeable treasure of 142 ancient Romanian coins called koson weighing more then 1.2 kg, valued on the black market at nearly 85,000 euros, has been turned in to the Police by a local of Mt. Orastie, western part of the country, who will be recompensed according to the legislation in force. The 142 koson, of high value to the national heritage of Romania, individually weighing between 8.20 and 8.80 g and dating back to the second half of the 1st century B.Ch., were presented at a news conference on Thursday at the Alba Iulia National Union Museum.
Deputy Prosecutor General with the Alba Iulia Court of Appeal Augustin Lazar said the treasure was turned in by a local of the western city of Hunedoara, who said he kept it as a good faith curator. Preliminary expert conclusions say the coins are authentic and will be turned over to Romania’s National Museum of History in Bucharest.
Deputy Prosecutor General with the Alba Iulia Court of Appeal Augustin Lazar said the treasure was turned in by a local of the western city of Hunedoara, who said he kept it as a good faith curator. Preliminary expert conclusions say the coins are authentic and will be turned over to Romania’s National Museum of History in Bucharest.
Source: financiarul.ro, Wikipedia
