Un tezaur monetar din secolul II a.Chr. descoperit la Săsenii pe Vale, jud. Buzău
A 2nd century BC coin hoard discovered at Săsenii pe Vale, Buzău County

Summary/Abstract: The authors present a silver hoard consisting of four Dyrrhachium drachmas and one small Sirmium-type coin, which was recently discovered in the village of Săsenii pe Vale, Buzău County, about 4.5 km southwest of the dava-type settlement of Cârlomănești. The discovery site is located in a forest, on a sloping terrain. The pieces are in good condition, two of them (no. 1 and 4) have slight traces of burning. The Dyrrhachium drachmas fall into the upper part of the fourth group of N. Conovici's chronology, dated approximately to the second half of the 2nd century BC (153-98). In the hoard from Săsenii pe Vale four drachma issues of three eponymous magistrates are represented –Aristomeneos II, Eortaios and Philodamos III, from an interval of one decade (BC 139-129). The three magistrates have been very rarely attested in discoveries on the territory of Romania, being identified only in the structure of two mixed hoards from Dieci, Arad County and of another one discovered at Tisa, Hunedoara County. The well-preserved Sirmium-type coin belongs to the phase B (after Popović), of good style, dated to the second half of the 2nd century-beginning of the 1st century BC. According to XRF analyses, it has a silver content of over 94%. For the association between Illyrian drachmas and Celtic coins of the Sirmium type in hoards, but also for the age of the Dyrrhachium pieces, the only analogies in Romania are found along the Danube, at the eastern limit of the Scordiscian area, in the adjacent discoveries from Ostrovu Șimian and Drobeta-Turnu Severin, Mehedinți County. The Ostrovu Șimian hoard contains the earliest Dyrrhachium drachmas from Romania (also represented between the oldest pieces in the Dieci I hoard), belonging to group III (c. 176-154), which are associated with an important batch of Sirmium-type coins – including small-flan pieces – and other coins from the category of late imitations after the Macedonian prototype. The Drobeta hoard consists of three Sirmium-type coins and a drachm from Apollonia, minted in the same period as the Șimian drachmas. Other hoards with Sirmium-type coins and Illyrian drachmas, but dating later, are known from Titel and Stara Pazova II (Serbia) and Orolik (Croatia), respectively. The hoard presented above was found at a considerable distance from others with the same structure apparently belonging to the area of origin, that of the middle course of the Danube. Therefore, it most likely represents a so-called “purse hoard” and documents the circulation of a person. Considering the circulation period, usually long, of the pieces of the two monetary species, but also their lack of wear, we admit a hiding of the coins sometime towards the end of the 2nd century BC.

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