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  • The coin finds from the sur...
    Schachinger, Ursula

    Vjesnik Arheološkog muzeja u Zagrebu, 11/2020, Volume: 53, Issue: 1
    Paper

    In the course of research by the Austrian Archaeological Institute (ÖAW) between 2008 and 2017 in the area of the Amber Road in eastern Austria, a military camp dating to the early imperial period was discovered near Strebersdorf, from which 452 coin finds were recovered by means of detector survey. Findings of coins from the region date back more than 100 years, published in 1984 in the series Die Fundmünzen der römischen Zeit in Österreich (FMRÖ). In the following, the finds from the survey will be analysed numismatically, focusing at first on the question of the beginning of military presence on site. Furthermore, the development of the settlement up to the 4th century is traced, and the end of coin circulation and settlement activity is also examined. The beginning of coin circulation in Strebersdorf can be determined as falling in late Augustan / early Tiberian times, which suggests that the earliest military camp was established in the wake of the expansions under Augustus, and probably in close connection with the Pannonian Revolt (6–9 AD). In late Tiberian / early Claudian times, the coin supply broke up, and obviously the camp was abandoned. After this, the coin finds no longer occur in the core area of the former military camp, but shift to the vicus, which takes a clear upswing from the times of Trajan and Hadrian onwards. A renewed military presence from Hadrian onwards is suggested not only by increasing numbers of coin finds, but also by the facts that the Amber Road, as a supply road to the Danube, had to be secured, and that local iron mining was being conducted. The settlement seems also to have participated in the general economic upswing in the Severan period. From then on, the finds occur almost exclusively in the area of the street settlement, which apparently developed as an economic centre. In the 4th century, too, uninterrupted development can be expected, with an absolute peak of monetary activity being reached in the 2nd half of the century.