НОВІ ЗНАХІДКИ САСАНІДСЬКИХ ТА АРАБОСАСАНІДСЬКИХ МОНЕТ VI–VIII СТОЛІТЬ В УКРАЇНІ
NEW FINDS OF SASANIAN AND ARAB-SASANIAN COINS OF THE 6th–8th CENTURIES IN UKRAINE

Summary/Abstract: Purpose and Scientific Novelty. The aim and novelty of this study lie in the introduction into scholarly circulation, description, and attribution of selected finds of Sasanian drachms, their imitations, and Arab–Sasanian hemidrachms discovered on the territory of Ukraine in 2020–2021. The authors has mapped these newly identified numismatic monuments, conducted their visual and metrological examination, performed physicochemical analysis of the elemental composition of the coin alloys, and compared the obtained data with previously studied analogues. Methodology and Methods. An interdisciplinary approach was employed, combining general scientific, historical, source-critical, and specialized numismatic methods, as well as digital numismatics, artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and natural sciences techniques. For the study and identification of coin finds, methods of description, analysis, synthesis, and visual inspection were used, along with specialized source-critical and numismatic techniques. In particular, die-study analysis was applied to the digital image data of new coin finds, enabling comparison with earlier-studied analogues. For this purpose, the instruments of digital numismatics were employed-most notably, comparative analysis of digital images of coin dies, which allowed the establishment of emission chronology, mint attribution, and technical features of coin production. Artificial intelligence software facilitated contrast enhancement, sharpening, noise reduction of macro-photographs of coin fragments, and large-scale database analysis of digitized numismatic sources. This significantly streamlined the processes of recognition and cataloguing of the studied numismatic material. To analyze the physicochemical composition of the coinage alloys, the method of energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (EDXRF) was applied. Conclusions. The new finds of Sasanian and Arab–Sasanian coins of the 6th–8th centuries, discovered in 2020–2021, actualize the numismatic map of Southern Eastern Europe in the 9th–10th centuries. Topographically localized, these numismatic monuments expand and refine our understanding of the routes and chronology of the influx of Sasanian silver coinage, intermixed with Kufic dirhams, into the territory of present-day Ukraine at the final stage of the Early Middle Ages. They also clarify the role and chronology of Arab– Sasanian hemidrachms and their fragmented fractions in the monetary circulation of Rus’ and its frontier lands in the 9th–10th centuries. In particular, the find near the modern village of Snov’ianka (Chernihiv region) belongs to the “Western zone” of Sasanian coin distribution, localized in the Desna and Snov river basins on the left bank of the Dnipro. The “Eastern zone” is delineated by hoards discovered in the Sieverskyi Donets and Oskol river basins within today’s Kharkiv region. Thus, unlike Arab dirham finds, which are characteristic of the entire forest-steppe region of Left-Bank Ukraine (Kharkiv, Sumy, and Chernihiv region), Sasanian coin finds do not form a continuous distribution belt. The assemblage includes original drachms of the shahanshahs of Iran popular in Central Asian monetary circulation in the mid-6th to early 7th centuries – Khosrow I Anōshirvān (531–579), Hormizd IV (579– 590), and Khosrow II Parvēz (591–628) – as well as high-fineness imitations of Khosrow II, struck from the mid-7th to the late 8th century. The chronology of the “younger” coins in the assemblage (~780–790 CE) suggests their deposition in mixed hoards with Kufic dirhams not earlier than the mid-9th century. A mixed find of Arab–Sasanian drachms and Kufic dirhams discovered on the right bank of the Dnipro near modern Kam’ianske (Nikopol district, Dnipropetrovsk region) is dated by its “latest” coins to the second half of the first quarter of the 10th century. The discovery site – on the right bank of the lower Dnipro – was, in the first half of the 10th century, an active transit zone of military campaigns and transcontinental trade. It is presumed that the coins were concealed or lost by their owner during a stopover en route to the Black Sea. Comparison of EDXRF analyses of coins Sas01–Sas11 revealed a high degree of similarity in the elemental composition of their alloys with other, previously studied analogues.

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