II. On the Beginning of Coinage on the Bosporus
Kovalenko S. A., Tolstikov Vladimir P.
The article considers the time and circumstances of the beginning of coinage in Panticapaeum, which was to become the capital of the Bosporan Kingdom. The earliest coin issues are examined in the context of late archaic Greek coinage, which makes it possible to show their place in the history of ancient coinage. The results of recent research carried out by the archaeological expedition of the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts are used in the article. A complex of numismatic, archaeological and historical evidence enables the authors to conclude that the first Bosporan coins were struck in the first years of the 5th c. BC in view of the necessity to cover a vast programme of public construction works which made Panticapaeum a real centre of urban life.