#Exhibit of the Month

The hoard was found in 1957 during the agricultural works near the village. At first, the hoard was in the collection of the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History and later was transferred to the National Museum of History (Accession: FB: 12 576 - 12650; N: 12 658 - 12 732). It consists of 75 silver coins from the thaler category issued by the Kingdom of Poland, the United Provinces and the Holy Roman Empire in 1612-1648.

THE KINGDOM OF POLAND
Sigismund II Vasa (1586-1632)
Crown, thaler: 1628 (1).
Gdańsk, orts: 1612 (1), 1613 (1*), 1614 (1), 1615 (7), 1616 (8), 1617 (16), 1618 (4), 1619 (2), 161 (1), 1620 (2), 1621 (8).

THE UNITED PROVINCES OF THE NETHERLANDS
Lion thalers (leeuwendaalder)
Gelderland: 1641 (1), 1647 (2), 1649 (1).
West Frisia: 1648 (1).
Utrecht: 1643 (1), 1646 (1), 1647 (2), 1648 (1).

THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE
Kampen: halve leeuwendaalder 1646 (1), 1647 (1); leeuwendaalder 1647 (3), 1649 (1).
Zwolle: leeuwendaalder 1633 (1), 1637 (3), 1644 (1), 1646 (2), 1648 (1).

This hoard by its composition confirms the presence of silver coins from the thaler category in the Principality of Moldavia monetary circulation.

Thalers were first minted in 1486 in Sankt-Joachimsthal, today the Czech Republic, "thaler" being an abbreviation of "Joachimsthaler", meaning coin issued in Sankt-Joachimsthal. In the 16th and 17th centuries, thalers were issued in very large quantities, especially by state entities that were part of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg Empire. Thus, thalers can be considered a quintessentially popular coin; there are thalers of several types, such as Austrian thalers, Polish thalers, Russian thalers, Turkish thalers, Venetian thalers, also called scuzi, "reichsthalers", also called imperials, löwenthalers or lion thalers, and Spanish thalers, also called piastre. In the Romanian principalities, thalers spread widely towards the end of the 16th century, and in the following centuries their circulation became very abundant, the thaler being in circulation until the second half of the 19th century. This money was a huge success, so it is also called: daalder / daler in the Netherlands, talar in Poland, dahlar in Scandinavia, tallaro / tallero in Italy, talari in Ethiopia, dollar in America. A special category is the Dutch thaler, leeuwendaalder, löwenthaler, which means "lion thaler", also called "lion" due to the coat of arms on the reverse, which is a shield with a crown, with a lion inside; it is a silver coin minted in Netherlands, where in 1575 it was decided to mint a new coin based on the scuzi. In the Romanian principalities the lion thaler appears in the last quarter of the 16th century. These lion thaler gave the name to the currency of Romania, the Republic of Moldova (leu), and Bulgaria (leva).

Orts are also silver coins from the thaler category, equal to 1/4 thaler. A quarter thaler was originally called "ortstaler", a name that was later reduced to the form "ort" (in Old German "ort" means "a quarter"). The coin circulated in Europe in the Middle Ages, including the Romanian principalities, being met in the 18th century as Polish, Turkish and German orts. The term "ort" is preserved in the Romanian expression "to give an ort to a priest" (which means "to die"), which dates back to the ancient pagan custom of placing a coin on the little finger of the deceased's right hand so that he could pay for the passage to the afterlife; With the same coin, the priest was paid for the funeral service: the family of the deceased "gave an ort to the priest" to observe church traditions.

National Museum of History of Moldova

Publications

Journal „Tyragetia"

vol. VIII [XXIII], nr. 1

Social symbols in the Bronze Age. Antler and bone scepters

ISSN 1857-0240
E-ISSN 2537-6330

Vasile Diaconu

Social symbols in the Bronze Age. Antler and bone scepters

Tyragetia, serie nouă, vol. VIII [XXIII], nr. 1, Arheologie. Istorie Antică

The present study discusses the antler and bone scepters specifi c for the Romanian Bronze Age. This type of objects have been found since the Neolithic period, they are frequently encountered during the Bronze Age and rarely discovered in the first period of the Iron Age.

The majority of the pieces are made of antler and only a couple of them are made of bone. Some of the pieces, beautifully decorated have a central perforation in order to fi x it in a wooden handle. Concerning the archaeological context of the fi ndings, the majority of the objects were discovered inside the settlements and only one piece is part of the inventory of a tomb.

The antler and bone scepters have been discovered in different archaeological cultures since the Early Bronze Age, but the majority of the pieces are attributed to the Middle Bronze Age (the Monteoru, Wietenberg, Costișa, Otomani, Verbicioara cultures). For the Late Bronze Age we only know one item. The signification of such items is primarily related to the social symbolism, but they can also be interpreted as cult objects in the case of their utilization during religious rituals.

List of illustrations:

Fig. 1. Dissemination of the antler and bone scepters in România: 1 - Boarta; 2 - Bodeștii de Jos; 3 - Cicău; 4 - Lancrăm; 5 - Oradea; 6 - Racoș; 7 - Sărata Monteoru; 8 - Sibișeni; 9 - Ulmu; 10 - Verbicioara.
Fig. 2. Antler fragments utilized as support for the manufacture of the scepters.
Fig. 3. Tomb 71 from the necropolis no. 4 in Sărata Monteoru (after Bârzu 1989).
Fig. 4. Antler scepters: 1 - Boarta (after Popa, Ștefu 2009); 2 - Lancrăm (after Aldea 1973).
Fig. 5. Antler and bone scepters: 1 - Verbicioara (after Berciu, Morintz, Maximilian 1957); 2 - Sărata Monteoru (after Bârzu 1989); 3 - Ulmu (after Florescu 1991); 4 - Racoș (after Costea, Ștefănescu 2003); 5 - Cicău (after Winkler, Takács 1980); 6 - Oradea (after Fazecaș 2005); 7 - Bodeștii de Jos (after Munteanu 2010).
Fig. 6. Reconstitution of a scepter (drawing D. G. Spatariu).