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Rare Constantine silver ingots saved from illegal sale
Three rare Roman-era silver ingots stamped with the image of the emperor Constantine have been given to the National Museum of the History of Ukraine after being saved from being sold illegally on the Internet. There are only about 90 examples of Roman silver ingots known, and only 11 of them bear mint stamp impressions. These are the first to be discovered in Ukraine, and the only ones to be found outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire. There are also the only such ingots found with mint stamp impressions on both the obverse and the reverse.
The seller was a local resident in the Khust district of Transcarpathia in western Ukraine who claimed they’d been in his basement since his great-grandmother found them while gardening in the backyard decades earlier. Obviously he did not report them to patrimony authorities as required by Ukrainian law. Instead, he posted one of the ingots online where it was noticed by eagle-eyed employees of the National Museum who promptly reported it to the police. They searched the person’s home and found two more of the silver bars. He has been arrested for illegal appropriation of a treasure of special historical, scientific, artistic or cultural value. If convicted, he may be sentenced to a fine, correctional work or up to six months in prison.
All three of the ingots are made of 342 grams of almost pure silver. They are in the form of an elongated double-headed axe and bear impressions of gold solidus coins minted by Emperor Constantine in 310 A.D. in Augusta Treverorum (modern-day Trier in Germany), the capital of the northwestern Empire. The ingots are stamped with a workshop mark that verified the purity of the silver. The stamp identifies the ingots as having been made by order of the emperor at the state mint.
This double-headed axe style of ingot was in production for a brief period from the end of the 3rd century the beginning of the 4th. They weren’t made for trade or transaction. They were intended to be donats — imperial gifts given to soldiers and courtiers usually to mark the emperor’s ascension to the throne. They were sometimes handed out to a select few during a triumph, when a co-ruler was appointed, when an heir came of age, as bequests after an emperor’s death and to bribe key people when the legions seemed close to mutiny.
In this case, Constantine minted the bullion to celebrate his victory over the Franks, but he would not have been able to hand them out yet, because before the war with the Franks was over, he had to quash the rebellion of Maximian, would-be emperor and father of actual co-emperor Maxentius. After dispatching Maximian, Constantine had to confront his son, a conflict culminating in his fateful defeat of Maxentius in 313 A.D. at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in Rome.
With this busy schedule, Constantine likely did not get to the military donation until the battle was won and his throne secure. Three ingots were presented tied together with a silver string to very high-ranking people. Very little is known about Transcarpathia in the 4th century, certainly no named individuals who might be important enough to receive such a donat.
The three ingots have now gone on display at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine.
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