SUMMER 2015 London Archaeologist 123 Faking it – the evidence for counterfeiting coins in Roman London Jenny Hall with Dana Goodburn Brown How often do we get caught out by being given a fake coin in our change? The most common UK coin to be copied today is the £1 coin and the Royal Mint, which takes counterfeiting seriously, has even issued guidance as to how to recognise them. 1 The same thing was happening in Roman London nearly 1800 years ago, although there was no such guide to help you to recognise real from fake. Counterfeiting coins was a criminal act which, during periods of inflation, was so rife throughout the Roman Empire that it perhaps became uncontrollable and people must have just accepted them at face value. So how did the Romans counterfeit their coins? Official Roman coins were struck – blank metal discs were impressed by finely-crafted engraved metal dies, one below, one above. To forge a coin, however, it was easier to produce a clay mould by taking the impressions from a real coin than it was to produce such engraved dies. Counterfeit coins could then be produced by pouring molten metal into the moulds (Fig. 1). Excavations at 85 London Wall A find of clay coin moulds, excavated from 85 London Wall in 1988 (Fig. 2: BLM87) 2 by archaeologists from Museum of London Archaeology, showed that there were Roman Londoners hard at work in London producing copies of both silver coins ( ) and copper-alloy small change ( and ). The moulds were found in the city ditch that lay just beyond the city wall near to All Hallows Church, London Wall. When first found, archaeologists brought a few in a bag to curators at the Museum of London and caused quite a stir as only two such moulds had been ever been found previously from Roman London. The next larger bag contained more, the next even more until there were over 800 coin moulds ranging from complete to very fragmentary – the largest find of counterfeit moulds from Roman Britain. The discovery of the moulds in the ditch of Londinium’s defensive wall led initial thoughts to be that of the concealment of incriminating evidence and this even formed the source for a Roman chapter in a historical novel by Edward Rutherfurd. 3 A research project in 2012–2013, to publish this important group of moulds fully, was able to look closely at the surviving moulds and conclude how they were made and to suggest why they were found scattered in the city ditch just beyond the defensive wall to the east of Blomfield Street. Two similar moulds, found previously at Newgate (Fig. 2: GM131) in 1966, 4 were used as evidence for dating the city wall to about AD 200, while three other moulds of similar date, but made in differing clay and type, have more recently been found in an agricultural ditch in Southwark (Fig. 2: BYQ98). Modus operandi As part of the research project, experimental archaeologist Dana Goodburn Brown looked at the surviving evidence to see how the moulds were made. Under the microscope, fine radial cracks in some of the moulds could be seen. She replicated this by pressing a modern coin into a flat disc of clay dusted with fine powder, causing the clay to crack in a similar manner under the applied pressure. She continued the process by adding another clay disc and pressing it down over the coin, followed by other coins and clay discs until a stack, or column of several moulds, was produced (Fig. 3). She found that the Fig. 1: forgers at work in Roman London (Derek Lucas/Museum of London) EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
COUNTERFEIT ROMAN COINS
SUMMER 2015 London Archaeologist 123
Faking it – the evidence forcounterfeiting coins in Roman LondonJenny Hall with Dana Goodburn Brown
How often do we get caught out bybeing given a fake coin in our change?The most common UK coin to becopied today is the £1 coin and theRoyal Mint, which takes counterfeitingseriously, has even issued guidance asto how to recognise them.1 The samething was happening in Roman Londonnearly 1800 years ago, although therewas no such guide to help you torecognise real from fake. Counterfeitingcoins was a criminal act which, duringperiods of inflation, was so rifethroughout the Roman Empire that itperhaps became uncontrollable andpeople must have just accepted them atface value.
So how did the Romans counterfeittheir coins? Official Roman coins werestruck – blank metal discs wereimpressed by finely-crafted engravedmetal dies, one below, one above. Toforge a coin, however, it was easier toproduce a clay mould by taking theimpressions from a real coin than it wasto produce such engraved dies.Counterfeit coins could then beproduced by pouring molten metal intothe moulds (Fig. 1).
Excavations at 85 London WallA find of clay coin moulds, excavatedfrom 85 London Wall in 1988 (Fig. 2:BLM87)2 by archaeologists fromMuseum of London Archaeology,showed that there were RomanLondoners hard at work in Londonproducing copies of both silver coins( ) and copper-alloy small change( and ). The moulds werefound in the city ditch that lay justbeyond the city wall near to AllHallows Church, London Wall. Whenfirst found, archaeologists brought a fewin a bag to curators at the Museum ofLondon and caused quite a stir as onlytwo such moulds had been ever beenfound previously from Roman London.The next larger bag contained more, thenext even more until there were over800 coin moulds ranging from
complete to very fragmentary – thelargest find of counterfeit moulds fromRoman Britain.
The discovery of the moulds in theditch of Londinium’s defensive wall ledinitial thoughts to be that of theconcealment of incriminating evidenceand this even formed the source for aRoman chapter in a historical novel byEdward Rutherfurd.3 A research projectin 2012–2013, to publish this importantgroup of moulds fully, was able to lookclosely at the surviving moulds andconclude how they were made and tosuggest why they were found scatteredin the city ditch just beyond thedefensive wall to the east of BlomfieldStreet.
Two similar moulds, foundpreviously at Newgate (Fig. 2: GM131)in 1966,4 were used as evidence fordating the city wall to about AD 200,while three other moulds of similar
date, but made in differing clay andtype, have more recently been found inan agricultural ditch in Southwark(Fig. 2: BYQ98).
Modus operandiAs part of the research project,experimental archaeologist DanaGoodburn Brown looked at thesurviving evidence to see how themoulds were made. Under themicroscope, fine radial cracks in someof the moulds could be seen. Shereplicated this by pressing a moderncoin into a flat disc of clay dusted withfine powder, causing the clay to crackin a similar manner under the appliedpressure. She continued the process byadding another clay disc and pressing itdown over the coin, followed by othercoins and clay discs until a stack, orcolumn of several moulds, wasproduced (Fig. 3). She found that the
Fig. 1: forgers at work in Roman London (Derek Lucas/Museum of London)
EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY
COUNTERFEIT ROMAN COINS
124 London Archaeologist SUMMER 2015
stack would have become unstable ifthe coins were removed at this stage.
It was also possible to see that thesides of the assembled moulds hadbeen smoothed off by rolling the stack
on a flat surface, having trimmed offany excess clay. Then a v-shaped notchthe length of the column was cut tocreate a runnel for each mould to allowmolten metal to flow in. Diagonal lines
were also scored along the length of thesides of the stack to aid positioning andto allow an additional coating of clay toadhere to the sides (Fig. 4: bottom left).Left to air-dry, the stacks would havebeen dismantled and the moulds takenapart to remove the coins. This methodmeant that, as the coin was left insideeach mould until the drying clay shrankslightly, it facilitated its removal. Thecolumn would then have been re-assembled matching up the notches andthe scored lines.
Experiments also showed that acopy of a coin may sometimes havebeen used to make moulds. Using ascanning electron microscope (SEM),possible air bubbles or roundprotrusions on the sides of some of themoulds indicated that a plaster copy,rather than an actual coin, may havebeen used. There was evidence, too, offile marks on the inside of the rim ofsome moulds showing where thesurface of the plaster copy had beenneatened off before use.
As a variety of coins, or copies ofcoins, were used, each clay mould hadthe head (obverse) of one coin and the‘tail’ (reverse) of another (Fig. 5 top),both produced as mirror images,making it a complicated task to identifythe coins, and silicone rubber castswere sometimes taken to facilitateidentification. Thus it has been possibleto identify the numbers and types ofcoins used. Each column would havebeen made up of double-sided mouldswith single-sided examples top and
Fig. 2: sites in Roman London where clay coin moulds have been found
Fig. 3: experiments showed how the moulds were produced (Nick Griffiths/Dana Goodburn Brown)
COUNTERFEIT ROMAN COINS
SUMMER 2015 London Archaeologist 125
bottom of each column. It is possiblethat round discs such as bone counterswere held against the top and bottom ofthe column and used as cutting guidesduring the trimming process, and oneblank side was marked by an incisedbarred cross which may have denoted itas a column of (Fig. 4, topmiddle).
A find of moulds and working debrisfrom Cologne in Germany showed thatthree columns were then positionedtogether5 with their runnels facinginwards, and it is likely that this was thecase for the London moulds. The sameclay (but with short lengths of straw andgrass and charcoal added) was used tocreate a container with a cup-shaped
opening at the top, like a bottle (Fig. 4).The charcoal in the clay would haveprevented the cast metal oxidising andthe grasses would have made it porousenough to allow gases to flow out of themould as the metal was poured in. Themolten metal would then have floweddown the central cavity and into eachmould through the v-shaped runnels.When cold, the container would havebeen broken open to retrieve the castcoins. Sometimes the moulds had to beprised apart leaving gouges and tool-marks on the surface. This retrievalmethod accounts for the fragmentarynature of the moulds and for the smallfragments of triangular-shaped claywhich would have been packed aroundthe columns (Fig. 4: middle and bottomright) while some moulds still had theextra layer of clay attached (Fig. 4: topright). The moulds varied in colour –some were orange-red, others wereblackened showing that they had beenburnt by the molten metal flowing intothe mould. Small fragments of miscastcoins also showed that the metal didnot always flow properly and that it hadhardened before it could flow furtherinto the mould.
Metal analysisAnalysis by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) ofthe metal in 19906 revealed traces ofcopper and zinc on some of themoulds and traces of copper, zinc andlead on the copper-alloy moulds. Thedifference indicates that this must have
Fig. 4: evidence from the working debris showed that the columns of moulds were encased in anextra layer of clay. Scale in cm.
Fig. 5: molten metal flowed into the clay moulds - moulds shown here with their casts, one double-sided denarius mould (left) and one single-sided asmould (right), and the evidence from the cast coins showed the cast edge and incorrectly matched obverse and reverse. Scale in cm.
COUNTERFEIT ROMAN COINS
126 London Archaeologist SUMMER 2015
been deliberate depending on the typesof coins being cast. Both mixes wouldhave had lower melting temperaturesthan that needed for either silver orcopper alloy.
There was also supplementaryevidence from cast copies of coins, one,a ‘silver’ was found amongstthe moulds and the other, a copper-alloy was found elsewhere on thesite. The ‘silver’ coin had a seam linealong its edge (Fig. 5 bottom left & SEMimage), indicating that it had been castand, where the molten metal hadflowed into the mould, a ‘casting’ cuphad also formed. This would have beencut off after cooling causing a flat edgeat that point. The cast copper-alloy coin(Fig. 5 bottom right) showed that carewas not always taken in the process asit had the obverse of a coin of theemperor Philip I with a reverse ofGordian III. The coin, being cast, alsohad a seam around its edge whichshowed it came from two types ofmoulds; one with a deep impression,the other, more shallow, making it lessdetectable as a forgery. Yet anothercoin was found still attached to itsmould and showed that the forger hadtried to chip away the mould withoutsuccess before discarding it.
Made in LondonThe moulds for both the andcoins were made from a fine, micaceousclay with iron-rich inclusions, showingquartz and mica – a clay similar to thatused at pottery kilns excavated atNorthgate House, Moorgate in 1998.7
From the end of the 1st century andthrough the early 2nd century thesekilns were regularly producing, amongstother wares, London oxidised warevessels, production being particularlyabundant in the early Antonine period.The fabric of London oxidised wares issimilar to that used for the Londonmoulds one hundred years later. Othermoulds from Britain8 and Belgium9 arealso made from similar fine clays whichenabled the moulds, in the main, totake crisp high-quality impressions.
Quantity not quality?At least 75 coins were being copied,both silver of the early 3rdcentury AD and copper-alloy coinsfrom the early 2nd to mid-3rd centuryAD. The earliest coin used was that of
the Emperor Trajan and was very wornand the latest coins were of the little-known emperor Trebonianus Gallus(AD 250–253). The bulk, however,consisted of of the Severanfamily from the late 2nd to the mid-3rdcentury. The following members of theimperial family featured on the moulds– Septimius Severus, his wife JuliaDomna, sons Geta and Caracalla andSeverus’ sister, Julia Maesa, whosedaughters, Julia Soaemias and JuliaMaesa, were mothers to Elagabalus andSeverus Alexander respectively andJulia Paula, the first wife of Elagabalus(Fig. 5: top middle). Of the copper-alloycoins used, most were of the emperorPhilip I, his wife Otacilia Severa (Fig. 5:top right), the emperor Trajan Deciusand his wife Herennia Etruscilla,although there are an interestingnumber of 2nd-century worn coins ofTrajan, Antoninus Pius and Faustina II,showing how long such coins musthave remained in circulation.
This was not the official means ofminting – so, how common was thepractice of copying coins? The evidencefrom the three London sites, wheremoulds have been found, shows thatthe early to mid-3rd century was a timewhen the counterfeiting of silverwas most prolific and Philippa Walton,when with the Portable Antiquity Sceme(PAS) at the British Museum, calculatedthat about one-third of the silver coinsin circulation in the mid-3rd centurywere either fake or plated with acheaper copper-alloy core. She alsosuggested that the practice was mostprevalent in areas of the north-westernprovinces where the army was basedand where silver was needed to pay thearmy.10 London has the largest numberof moulds found from Roman Britainbut there are also larger groups ofmoulds from towns in military provincesat Pachten, Mainz and Trier in Germany,Saint-Mard in Belgium and Lyon inFrance.11
A British phenomenon?So, when and why were such coinsbeing produced in Roman London? Thenumber of moulds found from Londonfar outnumber other examples of claymoulds from Roman Britain. In London,there was a greater number of the‘silver’ moulds, some 400 doublemoulds and 75 single while there were
fewer copper-alloy moulds, some 246double and 92 single moulds. The mid-3rd-century moulds for copper-alloycoins, however, appear to be unique –such coins were not widely circulatednor are they common finds from RomanBritain. It is a puzzle as to why theselow-value coins were being producedand it has been suggested that theywere needed as small change to boostLondon trade.12
The last coins used to make themoulds found in the city ditch atLondon Wall dated to AD 250–253.This might tell us that they could havebeen deposited there by about AD 260when the ditch was already filling upwith general rubbish. In addition, therewere human bones, leather shoes andnine whole funerary pots in the ditch,including five which held offerings ofchickens and coins, thought to be fromburials washed out from a cemeteryfurther to the north.13
This article has sought to makesuggestions as to what the moulds wereand why they were made, but the factremains that London was producing alarge number of forged coins in themid-3rd century and disposing of therubbish from production. The mouldsrecorded as part of this research werenot the final total. Many smallfragments were unidentifiable and,indeed, more moulds could be seen insection on the edge of the site but couldnot be retrieved for safety reasons.Workmen from the site later collected anumber of moulds (some of which werepurchased by the Museum of Londonand included in the research) while ithas been suggested that others wereseen on a nearby site but no recordsurvives for these. The numberspublished here, therefore, will never bethe final or absolute total.
AcknowledgementsThe full report has been published in
14 with the research kindlyfunded by the City of LondonArchaeological Trust and
, and my thanks go toDana Goodburn Brown for herexperimental work and to Nick Griffithsfor his illustrations. I would also like tothank the Museum of Londonconservators and conservation studentswho kindly produced casts of many ofthe moulds to assist in identification
COUNTERFEIT ROMAN COINS
SUMMER 2015 London Archaeologist 127
1. http://www.royalmint.com/discover/uk-coins/counterfeit-one-pound-coins
2. Unpublished site (BLM87) but records can be foundin the London Archaeological Archive and ResearchCentre, Museum of London.
3. E. Rutherfurd London – The Novel (1997).
4. R. Merrifield London City of the Romans (1983) 160–3.
5. For a discussion on Roman Britain’s moulds, see G.Boon ‘Counterfeit coins in Roman Britain’ in J. Caseyand R. Reece (eds) Coins and the Archaeologist (1988).
6. The analysis was conducted by Mike Heyworth,then of the Ancient Monuments Lab.
7. F. Seeley and J. Drummond-Murray Roman potteryproduction in the Walbrook valley (2005) 114–5.
8. G. Boon and P. Rahtz ‘Third-century counterfeitingat Whitchurch, Somerset’ Arch J 122 (1965) 13–51.
9. J. Lallemand ‘Les moules monétaires de Saint-Mard(Virton, Belgique) et les moules de monnaies’, in A.Cahen-Delhaye et al., Un quartier artisanal del’agglomération gallo-romaine de Saint-Mard (Virton),
Etudes et Documents, Fouilles1 (1994) 141–77.
10. P. Walton Rethinking Roman Britain: Coinage andArchaeology, Collection Moneta 137 (2012).
11. Op cit fn 9.
12. R. Reece The Coinage of Roman Britain (2002) 45–6.
13. As previewed in London Archaeol 13 no 11 (Winter2013/14).
14. J. Hall ‘With Criminal Intent? Forgers at Work inRoman London’ Britannia 45 (2014) 165–194.
and to the Picture Library for the use ofthe reconstructed illustration by DerekLucas (Fig. 1). The moulds are housedin the London Archaeological Archiveand Research Centre at the Museum ofLondon.
Robert Cowie, Amy Thorp andAngela Wardle
MOLA Archaeology StudiesSeries 29,
20113
114 pp, 78 figs, bibliography,index.
£15
Reviewed by Clive Orton
below the ‘small towns’, with an estimated area of 5-6 ha and apopulation perhaps in the hundreds.
The excavation occupied a strip of land running roughlysouth from the Roman road, beyond the (then) known westernlimit of the settlement. This study is welcome, because mostprevious work had concentrated on the road itself and itsimmediate frontage, and little was known about the back-lands. Ifound the thumb-nail plans of the whole site, located in thecorner of each phase/trench plan, very useful. The report has theweaknesses of many rural sites: mostly small ceramicassemblages often complicated by residuality and intrusion, andan ephemeral stratigraphy often damaged by later activity.However, they do not detract from the general chronologicalpattern of growth, decline, and a final resurgence before fadingout in the 5th century, and the spatial pattern of occupationalongside the road and agricultural activity (field ditches) furtherfrom it.
Most readers will probably be more interested in thediscussion. There is some overlap with the descriptive section, asevidence presented there is discussed. The work breaks awayfrom the usual model of such excavations, which says that it is aroad-side settlement because evidence is only found near theroad, and so only looks for more evidence near the road, whichbecomes self-fulfilling. The valuable gazetteer makes this plain.The extensive report on the 138 Roman coins found fails tocompare their chronological distribution (or, better still, thedistribution of coins found on all Brentford sites) with that ofReece’s site types, or of other similar sites (such as Ewell) in theregion. This could have provided additional evidence for thenature of the settlement. The overall conclusion, that Brentfordwas (as usually thought) a convenient stopping place on the road,and possibly also a small market centre, is not surprising, butmore firmly based than before. The report is a small piece in thejigsaw, but a useful one.
We cannot understand without understanding itshinterland, and the study of the hinterland is much less advancedthan the study of the city itself. Any report on one of the ‘third-level’ or roadside settlements that ring , such asEnfield, Ewell, Brockley Hill or in this case Brentford, is welcome,especially if it includes a discussion of the settlement as a whole.
This book has two main sections: the report of an excavationat the (apparently) extreme west end of the settlement, and adiscussion of what new light this sheds on the settlement as awhole, which has been extensively excavated in the past.Brentford (its Roman name is unknown) lies on the London-Silchester road, about midway between and(Staines). Its classification as a ‘third-level’ settlement puts it
Roman roadside settlement and rurallandscape at Brentford
BOOKS
Related Documents
