currency-bar

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Object Type
Museum number: R1867,0101.1
Denomination: aes signatum
Description: Cast copper alloy currency-bar (aes signatum). (whole); Anchor. (obverse); Tripod. (reverse)
State
Authority
Cultures/periods
Production date: 280BC-250BC (circa)
Production place: Minted in: Rome (city)
Findspot: Excavated/Findspot: Castel Gandolfo (1819)
Materials
Technique
Dimensions: Weight: 1495.000 grammes
Curator's comments: Copper alloys were used as currency in northern and central Italy in the form of scrap and cast into bars. The earliest bars contained copper and iron, and apparently circulated from the 6th to 3rd centuries BC, mainly in Etruria. They were very brittle, and it seems likely that the iron was introduced to increase their weight. The weight was not fixed at this stage, but when the Romans started to make their own currency bars, they adopted a standard of about 5 Roman pounds. Rome copied the central Italian idea of making currency bars in the late 4th century BC, and continued to make them until about 250 BC. As well as being made to a fixed weight standard, they have a varied range of designs.
Bibliographic references: RRC / Roman Republican Coinage (10/1); HN Italy / Historia Numorum : Italy (263, p.46); Haeb / Aes Grave. Das Schwergeld Roms und Mittelitaliens (4, p.92); Ghey, Leins & Crawford 2010 / A catalogue of the Roman Republican Coins in the British Museum, with descriptions and chronology based on M.H. Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage (1974) (10.1.1)
Location: On display (G68/dc3)
Subjects: anchor; religious object
Acquisition name
Previous owner
Acquisition date: 1867
Department: Coins and Medals
Registration number: R1867,0101.1
Additional IDs: Miscellaneous number: HSBC.756 (Money Gallery Exhibited)

Free entry

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