A coin of the Greek colony of Messana (Messina)
An exhibition within the “Object of the Month” campaign on the occasion of the centennial of Zagreb City Museum
Exhibition concept: Boris Mašić
According to the legal definition, museums are institutions the work of which comprises collecting, keeping and studying, protecting and presenting museum material, while the collection of this material is carried out by purchase, donation, inheritance, exchange and field research. Field research includes the collection of museum material via the archaeological method, which implies finding and interpreting the traces of human activity and of the material remains of the past preserved below the surface of the earth.
We can find the first traces of archaeological operations in Zagreb City Museum in 1911, in the aide memoire of the director of the time, Emilij pl. Laszovski, on the occasion of the finding and accessioning of eight archaeological objects found during the extension of the city's council chamber, in what was then Vijećnička and is today Kuševićeva Street. Almost eighty years later, in 1989, during restoration operations in the monument complex within which Zagreb City Museum is located, archaeologists started rescue excavations that, with minor interruptions, lasted until the opening of the new permanent display in 1997. During these investigations, material was found testifying to the existence of a settlement on Grič Hill since prehistoric times (7th – 6th century BC), and this, with other items, constitutes the basis of the archaeological part of the permanent display of the museum today.
In the same year, 1997, at the initiative of the Municipal Institute for the Protection of Monuments of Culture and Nature in Zagreb, the museum was for the first time engaged on archaeological investigations within the historical core of the city – excavations of the remains of the foundations of the city gate in Opatička Street. This was the beginning of the successful collaboration of the museum researchers and the conservation department that has continued down to this day. For after that there came a whole sequence of archaeological operations within the protected historical urban unit of the city of Zagreb, which brought to the light of day numerous material testimonies to past times, the proper evaluation of which has essentially rounded out the picture we have of Zagreb in history.
Among other things, one should pay due attention to the several years of research in Grič Park, where the remains of the foundations of the Angevin palace complex of the first half of the 14th century were found, a municipal cemetery of the 16th and first half of the 17th century, and remains of a prehistoric settlement from the early phase of the Hallstatt culture of the Early Iron Age, the 8th century BC. In addition it should be said that the rescue excavations carried out during the refurbishing of the paving of St Mark's Square showed conclusively that the Early Iron Age settlement stretched across the whole of the plateau of the Grič hillock – from today's Zagreb City Museum, across St Mark's Square, to Grič Park – showing us just how large the population must have been at that time, and how important the settlement was. During these excavations, 33 graves were found with skeletal remains, some of which tell of the existence of a medieval settlement on Gradec, certainly before the incursion of the Tartars in 1242. Also needing pointing out is the discovery of a workshop for the making of ceramic stoves, at the site of today's Centar Kaptol mall, which was in operation from the end of the 14th century until the 1520s. Importance is also claimed by the research within the Upper Town High School, as it is today, by which it was shown that the southern elevation of the high school was not built upon the medieval ramparts, rather that their foundations are within the building, and that they were knocked down during structural remodelling in the 19th century.
For a number of years, Zagreb City Museum has been investigating the Early Iron Age cemetery of Budinjak, the Žumberak region. The finds from this research have aroused considerable interest among archaeologists worldwide. During 2006 and 2007 the museum has been carrying out extensive excavations along the course of the future Zagreb – Sisak motorway (the Zagreb – Velika Gorica South section), where on 50,000 square metres at the site of Šepkovčica a highly stratified finding site was discovered, one that has been continuously inhabited since the Aeneolithic period of Lengyel culture (4 thousands years BC), over the Late Bronze Age horizon, and the cemeteries and settlements of antiquity, all the way down to a significant medieval stratum, in which we can register the colonisation of this area by the Croats.
The results of these excavations have been published in the scholarly press and elsewere, the objects have been shown at exhibitions, and some of the finds are presented on the site of their finding. The importance of this specimen found during archaeological excavations in Grič Park in the Upper Town in 2005 is all the greater if it is understood that – as distinct from the Adriatic part of Croatia – find of Greek coins in the inland part of Croatia are extremely rare, particularly when we consider that not even along the Adriatic (judging at least from the information available about the collections in Split, Zadar, Vis and Hvar) has there been any find of Mamertine coinage. On the other hand, in the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, there are 13 such coins, unaccompanied by any information about the places of their findings.
A coin of the Greek colony of Messana (Messina)
Struck after 288 BC
Obverse: head of Zeus with laurel wreath, facing right
Reverse: warrior with helmet on head, and shield;
left the inscription MAM( EPTINΩN)
AE, 26.5 x 27 mm; 9.13 g
MGZ 41888
The mercenaries from Campagna or Oschia who called themselves Mamertines (derived from the Oschian name for the Roman god Mars) conquered Messina around 288 BC. These people were formidable warriors, who, after taking Messina, spread their rule over the whole of NE Sicily, and for a short time became powerful enough to retain ther independence even of Syracuse. They struck ther coins only in bronze.
As can been seen, our example has been perforated, which means that it lost its basic function as currency, becoming thus an element of adornment, with a value, aesthetic and symbolic function. It is quite a common custom to incorporate coins into jewellery, and has been practised ever since Antiquity. For the moment it is not possible to determine just in which historical period the specimen was used as a pendant or amulet, but the fact that it is the only Greek coin known to have been found in the Zagreb area makes it very valuable.
Boris Mašić
Pictures from the exhibition
