Coins and cultural contact: adoption and use of metal coins by non-Greeks in ancient Calabria (6th- 5th centuries BC.)

Abstract

We are all familiar with the main questions involved in the adoption and use of coined metal by the Greeks back in the 6th-5th centuries BC; questions such as the steps in the expansion in the Mediterranean area of the habit of coining; abstract value and concrete value; intrinsic value and “fiduciarity” of coined money and so forth. In this short paper, our intention is to focus attention on coin and metal finds in general (hoards, excavations, sporadic findings) in Southern Italy during the 8th- 5th centuries BC our case study intends to call attention to the ways of contact between the apoikiai and non-Greeks communities showing how the expansion of coinage promoted cultural change in this area and period specially as far as the notion of value goes.

Keywords

• Cultural change
• Notion of value
• Ancient coinage
• Cultural contact
• Greek colonization