Metal detectorists is great TV. Toby Jones and Mackenzie Crook roam the fields of Suffolk, encouraging us all to take up metal detecting while enjoying the (incredibly) sunlit hills and spotting the occasional Roman coin.
It’s a hobby that helps us understand the past, not just enjoy the present. Historians can put old coins to good use, but economists are always interested in money. Creative types can apply methods developed for modern data to these ancient treasures.
This is exactly what Johannes Boehm and Thomas Chaney do in a new research paper in an impressive way by evaluating records of 514,349 coins deposited between 325 and 950 AD throughout Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
Crucially, the data shows not only where the coins were found, but also where they were minted. This provides insight into trade patterns. They were able to use this data to explore the “end of antiquity,” when the Roman and Greek Mediterranean civilizations declined and Europe’s center of gravity shifted north and west.
Patterns of coin exchange show that it was not the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century that restarted trade. Roman coins continued to flow east to west and north to south across the Mediterranean. More important were the Arab conquests of the Maghreb and Iberian Peninsula in the 7th and 8th centuries, which created a major trade barrier. From then on, we see coin flows running east to west between Islamic states, and far less traditional north-south trade across the sea (Christian/Islamic coin flows did exist between the Iberian Peninsula and northern Europe, however).
With the decline of Byzantium (with consumption falling by about 50%) and the stagnation of Italy, European economic power shifted northwards, with urbanisation and consumption increasing in what are now France and Germany. Political power came with the rise of the Frankish emperor Charlemagne at the end of the 8th century.
Fascinating research. And another reason to get the detectors out.
after newsletter campaign
