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Fern Hearle

ANTH 2030

Professor Griffiths

11/13/18

Archaeology Final

Exploring the world is an important aspect of life and civilization development. As you

walk on the surface of the ground, looking around at everything surrounding you, haven’t you

ever wondered what’s below your feet? The only way in discovering this is by the archaeological

experts that have studied crucial and specific ways to be able to identify and analyze our past.

With advanced tools and strategies to make excavation and dating as easy as possible. We need

tools such as mapping out the context, stratum, survey, using plum bobs, line levels, and much

more. They also study climate conditions to apply what is necessary to revive the artifact, to get

the best outcome of the artifact. Being able to analyze the past means that there is ultimately a

better understanding of why and how society and civilizations are the way they are today. My

research goal is very similar to my last project. It is to understand where currency began, and

how is it dated, why it is so popular, as well as how they are able to find these discoveries.

There are countless artifacts and features that can be discovered while digging around

such as poetry, stonehenges, statues, grave goods, arrowheads, even hieroglyphics. But I’m

going to focus on the currency that has been left behind from our ancestors, that has paved a way

for civilizations today to be able to establish an orderly fashion concept for trading goods,

settling debts and much more. As I stated in my last research project, I have found that coins

were first minted in Neolis, Italy. They started almost as stones, nothing that resembles
something we recognize today as money (moneterare). After passing centuries, they changed in

size, shape and metals, and soon began to portray

engravings on the face of the coin.

The coins soon found their way to neighboring

countries that picked up on the idea, and it soon

became commonly known, and everyone had it in

maps/place/Naples

their pocket.

I am going to expand on a discovery that was found in northern Italy. This excavation

was reasoned to begin because the building was no

longer in use. In the infrastructures prime days, it

was a popular opera house that everyone wanted to

attend. The “Cressoni Theater hosted some of the

greatest operas to come through northern Italy”

(ancient-roman-gold). But later in its years, it

turned into a movie theater in 1997 (ancient-

roman-gold). Years later in the 21st century, “Now, it's being gutted to make way for the

lakeside city's newest luxury apartments” (ancient-roman-gold). During the demolition of this

renovation for the apartments, an archaeologist named Luca Rinaldi was called down to the

building, because someone had spotted something in the dirt underneath the theater. And to his

surprise, he found two soapstone jars, containing a huge stash of Roman gold coins underneath

the theater, “dating to 5th-century Rome” (ancient-roman-gold). Luca stated that “the discovery
stood out because of the large number of coins and how well preserved they are” (ancient-

roman-gold).

How did they find these coins? In the article it states that as the construction proceeded, a

hole was created from ripping the floors up, but at a closer look, they noticed something other

than the earthly dirt below it. There was a sparkle that caught the eye, and to further curiosity,

the soapstone jars were found. Once Luca arrived at the excavation, he wanted to find out more

information about the coins, so he sent them “to a restoration laboratory in Milan” (ancient-

roman-gold). The

information they

have received from

roman-gold-coins

the laboratory so far is that “They had engravings about emperors such as Valentinian III and

Libio Severo, suggesting they were minted before A.D. 474” (ancient-roman-gold).

The coins that were found depicted rulers, and from study, they have found that those

rulers were Roman, resulting in the coin originating in the Roman empire and country. This also

gave them a way to predict an absolute dating on the artifacts, placing them, as the article said,

around 474 A.D. For an archaeologist, and laboratories, such as the one in Milan, to understand

the sequence of rulers in time, in different places is crucial to place a coin, or any artifact, by its
engravings accurately, as well as the size, weight and material that is used, such as bronze,

copper, silver or gold. The metal usage was determined by how common the metal was, as well

as the value it had at that time (article.apx). Because places on earth are always changing,

especially powerful countries such as in Europe, the value in objects were always changing,

resulting in requirement for using more valuable metals to acquire what was needed in everyday

Valentinian III Libio


alchetro.co Truttafario.co
Severo
m m
life.

Performing an excavation is different for different places. For most places, an

archaeologist would have to record each layer of stratum, taking into account for disturbances, as

well as labeling areas for a plan. But for this example of the theater, because there was a building

on the ground above the artifact, it has a fairly precise place to where the artifact was located.

There was also no weathering or erosion of the dirt on top of the artifact. This made it quite easy

for the archaeologist to perform strata dating conforming to the law of superposition, which

requires accounting for disturbances and climate contributions, to be able to chronologically date

the artifact correctly (Renfrew and Bahn). The soapstone jars features were also a path to dating

the coins, and to recognizing the availability of the specific jars in that time for people to use.

Then whatever is inside the jar will most likely be dated around the same time as the jar. The jar

had its representation of its material, shape and size, being able to date the pottery in a specific

era, and creating a fundamental direction that could be followed for dating the coins inside.

Archaeology is essential for understanding our past. Where did we come from? How did

we get here? Knowledge is a gift to the human race, and sometimes we take it for granted. Doing

the research necessary to give a way to follow a path back in time to expand others knowledge is
important. Currency made a huge dent in shaping history. But that’s only a fraction of what

human minds have created to resolve problems. Discovering other artifacts to add onto that

knowledge of human history is something not only I want to do, but everyone should participate

in. To not only learn how history, but to be able to avoid repeating past mistakes.

Works Cited:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/09/10/cache-ancient-roman-gold-was-found-by-
crew-building-luxury-apartments/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.cc598358e73f

https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=8088

BAHN, PAUL & COLIN RENFREW. ARCHAEOLOGY ESSENTIALS. Thames & Hudson,
2015.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Naples,+Metropolitan+City+of+Naples,+Italy/@40.853873
5,13.9783037,10z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x133b084f6a6c7e99:0x3df52cc13b78191d!8m2!3d40.85
17983!4d14.26812

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/roman-gold-coins-italy-cressoni-theater-trnd/index.html

https://alchetron.com/Valentinian-III

https://truttafario.com/tag/libio-severo/

https://moneterare.net/en/roman-coins/

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