ARROWHEAD-MONETARY SIGNS WITH A SYMBOL HATCHET (ANCHOR) FROM THE LOWER BUG REGION

Abstract

Arrowhead-monetary signs belong to the earliest primitive money, which were used in the Western and Northwestern Black Sea region by the Greek colonists in the Milesian apoikiai of Apollonia Pontica, Histria and Berezan. Arrowheadmonety was, accordingly, known from the territories of Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine. Мodern scholars divide these objects into several types, which include simple leaf-shaped pieces and ornamented specimens. Among the ornamented arrowhead-monetary signs there are types with an additional symbol. The article is devoted to the examination of arrowhead-money found in the Lower Bug region, which contains the additional hatchet (anchor)- shaped symbol. The examples with an additional symbol shaped like a hatchet (anchor) are quite rarely found. The authors know up to ten specimens of these kinds of arrowhead-money which were found in the Western and the Northwestern Black Sea region. However, the very fact of finding ornamented arrowhead-money is significant, particularly of the type with an additional symbol shaped like a hatchet (anchor) in the area of a Milesian apoikai in the Lower Bug region. These objects were previously discovered during archaeological excavations in the Milesian apoikia Tomis (modern Constanţa, Romania), which points to the economic relations between these Milesian colonies in the Northern Black Sea region. It is quite possible that arrowhead-monetary signs, we have described from the Lower Bug region, came to Olbia as small change money from the West coast of the Black Sea, where they were manufactured.