6th c. gold coins found in 10th c. house in Bulgaria

An excavation of a medieval house in the northern Bulgarian village of Debnevo has uncovered five gold coins from the reign of Byzantine emperor Justinian the Great (r. 527-565 A.D.). The dwelling dates to the 10th century, so the coins were already 400 years old when the house was occupied and may have been prized heirlooms or recent discoveries made during the construction of the dwelling.

Excavations at Debnevo over the past five years have found the remains of a 4th-3rd century B.C. settlement and evidence that it was still occupied from the 4th to the 6th centuries A.D. The village was next to a fortress built in the early 5th century when the area was part of the Byzantine Empire.

The medieval home was built over the remains of a Byzantine building. It was abandoned in the 10th century after a fire damaged it beyond recovery. The occupants left many belongings behind, including two iron sickles and axes, ceramic vessels, three bronze rings. Archaeologists found the five coins on the floor of the home.

All five coins are of the same type: a “tremissis” — a small gold coin worth one-third of a “solidus” — that depicts the emperor wearing a pearl diadem on the front, while the back depicts the personification of Victory holding a wreath in her right hand and a cross and globe in her left. The inscription on the front reads “Our Lord Justinian Perpetual Augustus,” a reference to the first Roman emperor, whose name was later used to refer to all emperors, while the back reads “Victory of the Augusts.” Two of the coins, likely burned in the fire that destroyed the house, are stuck together.

Archaeologists hypothesize that the builders of the home found the coins when construction work churned up the early Byzantine remains under the new dwelling.

* This article was originally published here