SOURCES OF ROMAN SILVER COINAGE

Despite its prior status as a luxury commodity, silver became widely used for coinage in the Roman world from the 7th century BCE onward and provided a standardized monetary system for ancient Mediterranean civilizations. However, the sources of silver used to produce Roman coinage have largely been used up, making it difficult to determine which deposits Roman miners exploited.

A new study published in the journal Geology yesterday evaluated silver sources from different mining provinces in the Iberian Peninsula to determine which locations may have been mined for silver to produce Roman coinage.

“The control of silver sources was a major geopolitical issue, and the identification of Roman silver sources may help archaeologists to reconstruct ancient fluxes of precious metals and to answer important historical questions, said Jean Milot, the lead author of this study.

The Iberian Peninsula, which includes modern Spain and Portugal, is host to world-class silver deposits, especially in the southern region. These deposits contain galena, which is the main ore of lead and an important source of silver. To extract silver, the galena ore is smelted and purified, with refined silver for coin minting able to reach a purity of over 95%.

To track the source of Roman silver, the team of researchers analyzed the silver and lead compositions of galena samples from ore deposits across the Iberian Peninsula and compared the results to the chemical signatures of silver Roman coins.

They identified two different types of galena deposits based on the silver elemental composition of the samples: silver-rich galena that would have been a likely source for Roman coinage, and silver-poor galena that would have been exploited for lead only and would have been of lower economic importance.

To read the complete article, see:
Discovering sources of Roman silver coinage from the Iberian Peninsula (https://www.geosociety.org/GSA/News/pr/2021/21-74.aspx)

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