The Mysteries of Ancient Mints

[Ocatarinetabellatchitchix]

What do we know about the location of the ancient monetary workshops ?

Almost nothing is known about the head of the workshop or his staff in Greece. A letter from Demetrios, in charge at Alexandria under Ptolemy II, shows him waiting in 258 BC a decision of the diocete Apollonius, his minister of finance (P. Cairo Zen. 59021). In Athens, we know from Nicophon's law that the workers were public slaves while another inscription tells us that Lysias was physetes, literally "blower", at the mint (J. R. Melville Jones, 1993 , no. 516).

Of the approximately 1,000 cities in the classical Greek world, around 400 minted money but only a few dozen did so on a regular and prolonged basis. Episodic most of the time, the issuance of coins did not necessarily require the allocation of a building of its own, even less of a prestigious building as would be the case later and up to the present day. Also and quite logically, archeology has only rarely identified traces of ancient monetary workshops. Among the most convincing cases is that of Athens for which American excavators uncovered, in the south-east corner of the Agora, a large building (90 x  125 ft) with multiple rooms. The presence of bronze bars as well as discs cut from them (i.e. blanks), the existence of traces linked to the refinement of the ore and the discovery nearby of inscriptions evoking the workshop makes the identification plausible of this building as a workshop, although we cannot be certain (no remains relating to the minting of silver have been found there). The other cases put forward for ancient Greece (Laos, Pella, Argos, Paphos and Aï Khanoum) are more conjectural. The simple discovery of monetary blanks, whether silver or bronze, is not enough to prove the existence of a workshop at this location. 

Quite different is the case of the great workshop of imperial Rome, whose plan revealed by the excavation under the basilica of San Clemente corresponds to that given by the Forma Urbis. Indeed, between the Caelian and the Esquiline, a large building could be the monetary workshop. The rectangular building, with exterior walls built from large blocks of tuff, houses a succession of narrow, barrel-vaulted rooms which seem to have never had access or openings to the outside. The building was destroyed and rebuilt in the second part of the 3rd century and its destruction could be linked to the revolt of mint workers under Aurelian (270-275 AD).

Twenty years ago, during the excavation works of a building at Trier, archaeologists discovered under a layer of 5 ft of debris, near the Porta Nigra, within the walls of the Roman city, more than 300 coins of the end of the reign of the Tetrici, a fragment of a 145g bronze ingot, 18 pounds of copper bars made in open moulds, uniformly elongated and rod-shaped, 40 copper bars with grooves for separating segments and many flattened blanks. This discovery seems to indicate that the main workshop at the time of the Gallic Empire was indeed located in this location.

 

What do we know about the minting process and the workers of the mint ?

 

Concretely, the striking required three people: 1) a person responsible for the striking, wielding with both hands a hammer with a thin and long handle, 2) a person responsible for the tongs, holding at arm's length the reverse die, and 3) an apprentice placing the blanks on the obverse die first, removing the printed coin then. 

The instruments represented on the reverse of this Carasia denarius (46 BC) were for a long time considered as the production implements of monetary workshops. It is now believed that they are in fact only the tools associated with the god of metallurgy, Vulcan. The apparent punch die on this type may be a cap of Liberty, and the lower die a generic anvil. The cap-shaped object is wreathed like a Dioscurus cap, which is the same cap worn by Vulcan.

Fortunately, the study of numismatics has allowed us to confirm the manufacturing process of ancient coins, as well as the role of the different laborers working in their production. Two tesserae preserved in Paris and Vienna gives us a fairly precise idea of what was happening inside a Roman mint.  On the reverse, a coin minting scene and the workshop building on the right. We can notice a character who handles the hammer, one who manages the blanks under his elbow [center], and one who holds the mobile die.

Next is a contorniate of Nero with on the reverse a scene of work in the monetary workshop: a figure seated right holds the coin-blank on the obverse die, a second, reclining left, holds the reverse die, a third, standing right, raises a hammer; another figure standing left on the right holding a staff or sword; another figure standing right on the left.

 

Many inscriptions (CIL VI, 42-44) were discovered (inscribed on the base of some statues) at the end of the 16th century in Rome between the Colosseum and the Lateran. They are explicitly dated to the year 115 AD, under the reign of Trajan, and seemed to be linked to monetary workers , to the point that it is considered that the workshop, after its move from the temple of Juno Moneta on the Arx, was located nearby. They listed the staff of the workshop: there were 25 officinatores, 17 signatores, 11 suppostores and 39 malliatores. But what did these Latin names describe ?

For malliatores, it’s pretty obvious. The Latin malleus designating the hammer, it is about the strikers, those who deliver the blow with the mace.

For suppostores, it is less obvious. It comes from the verb suppono, which means “to place under”. Le Gaffiot mistakenly translates as “he who puts the coin under the pendulum”, with the only occurrences being inscriptions. Numismatists agree to see the worker who places the blank on the fixed die, placed under the movable die.

It’s for the signatores that it gets complicated. The signator is the one who makes the signum, “the mark, the sign, the seal, the image”. For a long time, specialists understood “the one who makes the image”, therefore the coin engraver. But we find the word scalptores elsewhere. Today, most numismatists, like Woytek, see it as someone who holds the movable die, who ensures its condition, the good association of the coins and will, finally , print the image.

It seems that the officinatores took care of the administration. This must be the generic term for Mint officials. But we will also observe that only the freedmen insist on their status as officinators, from which slave agents seem to be excluded. According to the inscriptions, the fact that the malliatores are all slaves is hardly surprising: it is the most difficult and tiring role. The signatores are overwhelmingly freedmen: this role undoubtedly entailed a lot of responsibilities. The dies have been previously engraved by workers called scalptores (Woytek 2012). We could therefore believe that 48 freedmen and 45 slaves worked at the Rome Mint in 115, headed by a freedman exactor and his deputy, also a freedman. And that the most difficult tasks should fall to the slaves. A hundred people for a coinage workshop seems to be a reasonable number for this period, and gives us an approximate idea of all the employees working on the production in a Roman mint. 

 

 

Hoping that archeology will teach us in the future more about the production of ancient monetary workshops, because several questions remain unanswered: were the flans struck hot or cold ? What was the quantity of coins produced daily by an average workshop ? And about the lifespan of the dies. How many coins could be struck with a die set, and were they automatically recut to the point of some wear ?

Thank you for reading this article and I would be happy to read your comments about it.

Notes

Amandry, Michel, La monnaie Antique, 2018

Van Meter, David, The Handbook of Roman Imperial Coins, 1991

bnumis.com

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Vol VI

 

[Deinomenid]

For your questions, if they are general to Greek too there is a great deal of information available which I’m happy to forward.  Information and argument!

I am told that this wall painting of the Roman period is far from fanciful, aside from the amorini themselves.

 

“ The ‘amorini’ in their workshop: drawing of the fresco in the Vettii house, Pompeii, from T. Ely, ‘The process of coining as seen in a wall painting at Pompeii’

 

[Rand]

This is an interesting post. For some reason, I picture the process involving heating the flans and potentially a basin or pot to cool them.

The coins I collect, which are from a later period, have an irregular rim shape. One side is often flattened, as if it was held by tongues. The location of this flatness varies between each coin, suggesting it was part of the coin minting process, not part of the die. Please see the same die pair, I have more examples if needed (2-3 coins per die pair only).

What is interesting, the impression on the rim never affects the rest of the flan inside. This may mean that a very hot and soft flan was placed on the anvil by tongues leaving the tongue impression. This was followed by a strike and after this metal was harder, so that the coin could be removed withough damaging the image.

However, this would also mean that the rim would be present before the coin was struck and not part of the die. I cannot workout how this could work or if see this all wrong? 


[Coinmaster]

9 hours ago, Ocatarinetabellatchitchix said:

Also and quite logically, archeology has only rarely identified traces of ancient monetary workshops.

Well, this is mainly because archaeologists in the Mediterranean don't make use of metal detectors. As an archaeologist myself this is very frustrating. Even after a period of more than 50 years since metal detectors are widely available, there is still a taboo amongst many archaeologist to make use of these excellent prospecting devices. Also, these instruments are still not thought to students, so there is no hope this will change any time soon...

Very nice and interesting post - thanks for sharing!

[Ocatarinetabellatchitchix]

9 hours ago, Deinomenid said:

this wall painting of the Roman period

 Thanks for sharing. I like the Vulcan’s head with his cap on the top of the furnace. I’m wondering if the cupids are heating the ingots or the flans ???

[Ancient Coin Hunter]

One can imagine the hard work required by the late 3rd century for the hammer wielder, who presumably was a slave forced to swing the hammer thousands of times per day cranking out mass quantities of antoniniani. The silvering process has been studied but as far as I know no definitive work exists on the technique but there is speculation that the silvering was basically deposited on the struck coin by a chemical process. Clearly though the silvering did not last very long in normal circulation of coins. A similar technique was probably applied to folles (or the nummus) a bit later on. 

Clearly by the Byzantine era they stopped with the silver wash gambit when Anastasius issued honest to goodness large bronze coins.

Edited April 14 by Ancient Coin Hunter

[John Conduitt]

3 hours ago, Rand said:

This is an interesting post. For some reason, I picture the process involving heating the flans and potentially a basin or pot to cool them.

The coins I collect, which are from a later period, have an irregular rim shape. One side is often flattened, as if it was held by tongues. The location of this flatness varies between each coin, suggesting it was part of the coin minting process, not part of the die. Please see the same die pair, I have more examples if needed (2-3 coins per die pair only).

What is interesting, the impression on the rim never affects the rest of the flan inside. This may mean that a very hot and soft flan was placed on the anvil by tongues leaving the tongue impression. This was followed by a strike and after this metal was harder, so that the coin could be removed withough damaging the image.

However, this would also mean that the rim would be present before the coin was struck and not part of the die. I cannot workout how this could work or if see this all wrong? 


Perhaps the rim wasn't there when that part of the flan was flattened with the tongs. If it was flattened, the strike would be less effective in that area.

[Deinomenid]

2 hours ago, Ocatarinetabellatchitchix said:

I’m wondering if the cupids are heating the ingots or the flans

It’s supposed that they are the flans as the tongs holding the hidden object are not suitable for the heavier ingot and even the angle and the position of the little creature’s hand make it almost impossible to hold an ingot. Of course all this presupposes a lot of accuracy and knowledge by the painter!