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.
