Solidus Byzantine coin replica
$0.69 – $41.40
Solidus is an exact historical replica based on the discovery of a coin from the time of Great Moravia in the 9th century.
Diameter 18 mm
Material: metal (zinc) alloy.
The solidus (Latin for solid, reliable coin) was a gold coin used by the Romans. Its use continued into Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. From the 4th to the 11th century, the gold content of the coin did not change.
Description
Solidus is an exact historical replica based on the discovery of a coin from the time of Great Moravia in the 9th century.
Diameter 18 mm
Material: metal (zinc) alloy.
The solidus (Latin for solid, reliable coin) was a gold coin used by the Romans. Its use continued into Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. From the 4th to the 11th century, the gold content of the coin did not change.
The solidus as currency was first used during the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian in 301 and represented one sixtieth of a Roman pound of pure gold (i.e. 5.3 grams) and a value of 1000 denarii. Diocletian’s solidus was only issued in small quantities, so its introduction had minimal impact on the Roman economy. It was later reintroduced by Constantine the Great in 312, replacing the gold aureus as the imperial gold coin. The new solidus represented one seventy-two Roman pounds of pure gold, and each coin weighed 24 Greco-Roman carats, or about 4.5 grams of gold. At that time it was already worth 275,000 denars, the value of which was constantly falling.
The solidus was kept in circulation practically unchanged until the 10th century). Whenever a coin was received into the treasury, it was melted down and minted again. This ensured regularity in the weight of the circulating solids and made the coin less prone to long circulation and wear.
Although merchants under Byzantium were prohibited from using the solidus to trade outside the territory of the empire, these coins were still used for trade outside Byzantium, and the solidus soon became a popular form of currency throughout Europe and the Arab countries. Solidus was used in the Frankish Empire and later in Great Moravia and other places in Europe. The word solidus was then preserved in garbled forms as “soldi”, i.e. in common currency in a number of languages, in France in sou coin and in the English shilling.
From then on, emperors no longer collected taxes in solids, so the coins were not remelted, and the soft pure gold of these coins soon wore out. In the late 7th century, Caliph Abd al-Malik began minting the Arab equivalents of Byzantine solids – gold dinars, minted from gold mined on the upper reaches of the Nile. The dinars weighed only 20 Greco-Roman carats, however, they were fully equal to the worn solids in circulation at the time. In Arab countries these two coins were in circulation together.
Additional information
| Color | Gold, Patina silver |
|---|---|
| Množství v balení | 1 pc, 10 pcs, 100 pcs |
| Žánr/období | Medieval |
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