Leftovers in prehistoric pots let scientists peek into the kitchen of an ancient civilization

 

Scientists analyze traces of ingredients in 5300- to 4000-year-old cooking vessels

How to reconstruct the cookery of people who lived thousands of years ago? Bones and plant remains can tell us what kind of ingredients were available. But to reconstruct how ingredients were combined and cooked, scientists need to study ancient cooking vessels.

“Fatty molecules and microscopic remains from plants such as starch grains and phytoliths – silica structures deposited in many plant tissues – get embedded into vessels and can survive over long periods,” said Dr Akshyeta Suryanarayan, a reseacher at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain, and co-author on a new study in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

In the new study, Suryanarayan and co-authors analyzed such ‘leftovers’ in Copper and Bronze Age vessels – including pots, vases, goblets, jars, and platters – from today’s Gujarat, India.

“Our study is the first to combine starch grain and lipid residue analysis of ancient vessels in South Asia,” said Suryanarayan. “Our results show how the prehistoric people who made these vessels processed different foodstuffs and mixed them together, transforming them into meals.”

The authors sampled eleven 4200- to 4000-year-old vessels excavated at Shikarpur, an archeological site from the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilization that flourished between 2600 and 2000 BCE in today’s Pakistan and northwestern India, the third oldest urban civilization in the world. To study the effects of cultural change, they also sampled seventeen 5300- to 4300-year-old vessels from two nearby sites, Datrana and Loteshwar. The latter were made by semi-nomadic farmers and herders, during the Copper Age.

“Our results show that during both the Copper and Bronze Age in northern Gujarat, people acquired their ingredients in a variety of ways: some were foraged locally from the wild, others cultivated or herded, and some were traded in from elsewhere,” said first author Dr Juan José García-Granero, a researcher from the Spanish National Research Council in Barcelona, Spain.

For example, in the vessels from Datrana, 99% of the starch grains were from grasses in the tribe Hordeeae, which includes wheat, barley, and rye and their wild relatives. But these aren’t native to Gujarat, which suggests that they were imported from other areas.

The vessels from Loteshwar and Shikarpur contained mainly (67% to 73% of starch grains) starch from beans. The researchers also found traces of ginger, which may first have been ground on grinding stones and then used in cooking.

The lipids in the vessels from all three sites were mainly fatty acids typical of degraded animal fats. For the majority (78%) of these vessels, the relative abundances of the carbon isotopes 13C to 12C of the fatty acids suggested that this fat was from omnivores, for example pigs, birds, or rabbits. This was unexpected, as animal bones reported from Copper and Bronze Age sites in Gujarat in previous studies have so far mostly been from ruminants: domestic cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats, and wild deer and nilgai antelope. Yet only in 22% of the vessels analyzed here were isotope signatures consistent with ruminant fat. There were no traces of fish or dairy.

No phytoliths were found. Because these occur mainly in inedible plant parts, their absence suggests that seeds and grains were thoroughly cleaned before they were put into the vessels, with the less palatable parts removed.

To their surprise, the authors found no evidence that the profound cultural change from the Copper Age to the Indus Valley Civilization had any impact on how animals and plants were processed before and during cooking.

“Our results suggest that different ingredients were also used in different methods of cooking. The virtual absence of small millets (the staple in prehistoric Gujarat) in the pottery vessels suggests millets were used exclusively for flour-based meals, such bread-like products, whereas other ingredients (such as beans) would also have been used in a wider range of dishes, such as stews,” said García-Granero.

Final author Prof Marco Madella from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra concluded: “The combined use of plant microremains and biomolecules of the current study shows the great potential to unravel our understanding of ancient foodways.”

“The next step for the study of footways in South Asia will be to expand the reference material, especially for biomolecule analyses, for a better understanding of the ingredients and the recipes. We are currently expanding our work to cover the transition from the pre-urban to the urban phase of the Indus Valley Civilisation.”

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution

DOI

10.3389/fevo.2022.840199 

Study ties present-day Native American tribe to ancestors in San Francisco Bay Area

 A genomic study of Native peoples in the San Francisco Bay Area finds that eight present-day members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe share ancestry with 12 individuals who lived in the region several hundred to 2,000 years ago.

Reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study challenges the notion that the Ohlone migrated to the area between A.D. 500-1,000, said Ripan Malhi, a professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who led the research with Stanford University population genetics and society professor Noah Rosenberg in collaboration with a team of other scientists and members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe. The Muwekma Ohlone Tribal Council requested, contributed to and oversaw the study.

Previous studies of artifacts and language patterns suggested that the Ohlone were relative newcomers to the region. But the genomic research found a deep signal of continuity between the ancient population and the new one, the team reported.

“We analyzed a large number of ancestral remains for DNA preservation and focused on those with the best DNA preservation for this study,” Malhi said. “We also worked with the Ohlone to sample saliva from present-day community members so we could compare the DNA from both groups.”

The study focused on nuclear DNA and sequenced near-complete genomes of several ancestral individuals, taking advantage of newer genome-sequencing approaches, Malhi said.

The team also compared ancient DNA from individuals who lived in California and other parts of North America to look for genomic similarities and differences between groups.

The ancestral individuals belonged to two villages near San Francisco Bay, one that persisted from about 490 B.C. to A.D. 1775, and the other that dated to A.D. 1345-1839. At the request of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribal Council, the Far Western Anthropological Research Group excavated both sites prior to large-scale infrastructure construction. Muwekma tribal members participated in all aspects of the fieldwork and were the primary excavators of all burials.

“This was a rare, collaborative, community-engaged research project, with tribal members and archaeologists working side by side for more than a year of fieldwork, resulting in a tremendous repatriation of knowledge to the descendent community,” said study co-author Brian Byrd, an archaeologist with the Far Western Anthropological Research Group in Davis, California.

The Tribal Council also requested and approved a study design for the genomics work, and members of the study team regularly met with the council and enrolled tribal members to review the work.

“Part of what we wanted to do is not just rely on the genomics but to have a more holistic approach of having community knowledge or traditional knowledge and genealogical information – along with all the archaeological documentation – to tell the story,” Malhi said.

Present-day enrolled members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe are directly descended from Native Americans who in the late 18th century through the mid-19th century were incorporated into the three Bay Area missions: San Francisco, Santa Clara and San Jose, the researchers reported. After the 1846-48 American conquest of California, the surviving Native American communities found safe havens on established “Californio rancho” lands held by individuals of Spanish, Mexican, Mestizo or Indigenous origins. They continued to be baptized at Mission San Jose and buried at the tribe’s Ohlone cemetery through the 1920s.

“Muwekma Ohlone comprise all the lineages who trace their ancestry through the Bay Area Missions of San Francisco, Santa Clara and San Jose, and who were also members of the historic previously federally recognized Verona Band of Alameda County,” the researchers wrote.

Using the mission’s baptismal, marriage and death records, the tribe traced its genealogical descent from the aboriginal village, districts and tribal groups surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area. The Muwekma Ohlone tribal leadership fully supported the ancient and modern DNA studies conducted on ancestors and present-day enrolled members.

Prior to European contact, the territory now known as California hosted one of the most populous and diverse Native American communities on the continent, the researchers wrote.

“At contact, more than 15,000 Native Americans from five distinct language groups were residing … within 20 kilometers of the bay,” they wrote. Studies of the Bay Area’s dense archaeological history reveal that “intensive sedentary or semi-sedentary habitation extends back more than 5,000 years” and the region’s archaeological record goes back more than 11,000 years.

The Native population was diverse, and European contact disrupted the existing communities, the researchers wrote. There were 21 Spanish missions established in California in the late 1700s and early 1800s, five of them in the Bay Area. Mexico claimed the territory in 1822, and in 1850 California became a U.S. state. A year later, the governor promised that “a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race should become extinct.”

These upheavals led to population losses among the Muwekma Ohlone and other Native tribes, and admixture with Europeans. But a signature of the tribe’s ancient history remains embedded in the DNA of contemporary Ohlone community members, the researchers found.

“We were able to find one ancestral component from their genomic analysis that was shared with ancient people from the Bay Area,” Rosenberg said. “The Ohlone living today who participated in the study may not be direct descendants of the ancient people whose genomes we sequenced, but the analysis suggests they descended from the broader population to which those ancient people belonged.”

The colored skeletons of Çatalhöyük

 

IMAGE: SKELETON OF A MALE INDIVIDUAL AGED BETWEEN 35 AND 50 YEARS OLD WITH CINNABAR PAINTING ON THE CRANIUM. view more 

CREDIT: © MARCO MILELLA

An international team with participation of the University of Bern provides new insights about how the inhabitants of the "oldest city in the world" in Çatalhöyük (Turkey) buried their dead. Their bones were partially painted, excavated several times and reburied. The findings provide insight into the burial rituals of a fascinating society that lived 9000 years ago.

Çatalhöyük (Central Anatolia, Turkey) is one of the most important archaeological sites in the Near East, with an occupation that dates back to 9000 years ago. This Neolithic settlement, known as the world’s oldest city, covers an area of 13 ha and features densely aggregated mudbrick buildings. The houses of Çatalhöyük present the archaeological traces of ritual activities including intramural burials with some skeletons bearing traces of colorants, and wall paintings.

The association between the use of colorants and symbolic activities is documented among many past and present human societies. In the Near East, the use of pigments in architectural and funerary contexts becomes especially frequent starting from the second half of the 9th and the 8th millennium BC. Near Eastern archaeological sites dating back to the Neolithic have returned a large body of evidence of complex, often mysterious, symbolic activities. These include secondary funerary treatments, retrieval and circulation of skeletal parts, such as skulls, and the use of pigments in both architectural spaces and funerary contexts.

A study recently published in the journal Scientific Reports by an international research team with Bern participation provides the first analysis of the pigments use in funerary and architectural contexts from this essential Neolithic site. According to senior author of the study Marco Milella (Department of Physical Anthropology, Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Bern): "These results reveal exciting insights about the association between the use of colorants, funerary rituals and living spaces in this fascinating society".

A time travel into a world of colors, houses, and dead

Marco Milella was part of the anthropological team who excavated and studied the human remains from Çatalhöyük. His work involves trying to make ancient and modern skeletons "speak". Establishing the age and sex, investigating violent injuries or special treatment of the corpse, and solving skeletal puzzles are routine activities at the Department of Physical Anthropology.

The study shows that red ochre was most commonly used at Çatalhöyük, present on some adults of both sexes and children, and that cinnabar and blue/green were associated with males and females, respectively. Intriguingly, the number of burials in a building appears associated with the number of subsequent layers of architectural paintings. This suggests a contextual association between funerary deposition and application of colorants in the domestic space. “This means: when they buried someone, they also painted on the walls of the house”, Milella says. Furthermore, at Çatalhöyük, some individuals "stayed" in the community: their skeletal elements were retrieved and circulated for some time, before they were buried again. This second burial of skeletal elements was also accompanied by wall paintings.

Neolithic mysteries

Only a selection of individuals was buried with colourants, and only a part of the individuals remained in the community with their circulating bones. According to Marco Milella, "the criteria guiding the selection of these individuals escape our understanding for now, which makes these findings even more interesting. Our study shows that this selection was not related to age or sex". What is clear, however, is that visual expression, ritual performance and symbolic associations were elements of shared long-term socio-cultural practices in this Neolithic society.

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JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41598-022-07284-3 

An archaeological investigation analyses peasant life in Roman Spain

 The archaeology of the Roman period has traditionally been focused on monumental aspects, but very little is known about what the daily life of peasantry was like. An investigation by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) delves into the life of peasant settlements based on the archaeological findings discovered in the Community of Madrid, in the numerous rescue excavations that were carried out during the real estate bubble period.

This research project, funded by the Community of Madrid's Talent Attraction programme, is revealing aspects about the life of the humblest peasantry of that time, of which little information was available until now. "The study of this hidden archaeological heritage is allowing us to learn how they interacted with the surrounding landscape, the type of crops they grew preferentially, how they cooked, the domestic animal species they exploited, the type of crockery they used, how exchange circuits worked at a local and regional level, etc.", says the project manager, Jesús Bermejo, professor in the Department of Humanities: History, Geography and Art at UC3M.

The study reveals, for example, that Madrid's gastronomy could have inherited typical dishes from farms in the central areas of Roman Spain, such as potaje and cocido (typical soup and stew). Researchers have found remains of pots that were used to cook these dishes, with a very similar method to the current one. Those peasants threw a piece of meat together with the available vegetables and left them on the fire in a very uncontrolled way, while they carried out the agricultural work. "They left the pot on the fire very early in the morning, went to work in the fields, came back and ate communally, because the patterns we see on the crockery give us a much more collective vision," explains Professor Bermejo. This also gives us clues about the social relationships of that period: the act of eating was not an individual process, but a collective one, which could bring a large number of people together.

Sites in Barajas, Fuenlabrada, Getafe or Leganés

Due to their provisional nature —associated with the different constructions and public works where these rescue excavations have been carried out—, none of these archaeological settlements have been preserved and most people are unaware of their existence. One of the objectives of this research project is to give greater visibility to these sites, both socially and from a scientific point of view.

"Many of these sites are in towns such as Barajas, Fuenlabrada, Getafe or Leganés, where many people who are not aware of the existence of this archaeological heritage that reflects the life of the humblest sectors of past societies are living", explains Professor Bermejo.

Innovation and knowledge transfer in archaeology

In the case of prospecting – the exploration of the land to discover the existence of sites –two elements have revolutionised the practice of archaeological research in recent decades, according to scientists. The first one has been the use of GPS devices and other remote sensing systems for the georeferencing of archaeological findings. The second one is the generalisation of geographic information systems (GIS), which have made it possible to analyse a huge amount of archaeological data in relation to different geographic and environmental variables. "In the case of the analysis of archaeological findings from excavations, the use of new methodological perspectives such as the so-called household archaeology is revolutionising our way of understanding the archaeological record", says Jesús Bermejo.

The results of this research project, as well as other related studies, are collected in The Archaeology of Peasantry in Roman Spain (De Gruyter, 2022), the first monographic volume that addresses the subject of Roman peasantry in the Peninsula. This publication, co-edited by Jesús Bermejo together with Ignasi Grau, professor of Archaeology at the University of Alicante, brings together the contributions of a group of researchers who are developing pioneering and innovative perspectives focused on Hispanic-Roman rural society through different methodological strategies and various archaeological records. Many of these projects are based on the development of archaeological prospecting in various peninsular regions, such as the interior of the province of Alicante or various places in southern Extremadura. In other cases, the studies arise as a result of different excavation work, such as those carried out in the surroundings of the Villa de Almenara de Adaja-Puras, in the province of Valladolid. In this regard, the volume features a large amount of archaeological information which is unpublished or published in a very fragmentary way.

How Indigenous burning shaped the Klamath’s forests for a millennia

 Decades of logging and fire suppression have left California’s forests prone to drought, infestation and catastrophic wildfire. Climate change is only exacerbating these impacts. But for thousands of years before, during and after European colonization, Indigenous tribes have lived within and among these forests, intentionally lighting fires to manage landscapes and ecosystem mosaics, enhance habitat, produce food and basketry materials, clear trails, reduce pests and support ceremonial practices.

A new study published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences combines scientific data with Indigenous oral histories and ecological knowledge to show how the cultural burning practices of the Native people of the Klamath Mountains — the Karuk and the Yurok tribes — helped shape the region’s forests for at least a millennia prior to European colonization. 

The study found that forest biomass in the region used to be approximately half of what it is now, and that cultural burning by the tribes played a significant role in maintaining the forest structure and biodiversity, even during periods of climate variability. For example, while there were probably fewer lightning-sparked fires during the cool, wet time period known as the Little Ice Age, data from the study suggests that burning in the region actually increased during that time, and that forest biomass remained relatively low.

“Using multiple lines of evidence, we were able to detect an influence on forest conditions by Native people and show that their stewardship kept these forests at a stable, lower level of biomass for at least a millennia,” said study lead author Clarke Knight, who completed the research as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. “The idea that we need to just let nature take its course really underestimates the management need, because these woods were actively managed for at least a thousand years and probably longer.”

A recent study in the Sierra Nevada found that the density of trees in that region has also increased dramatically over the past century by a factor of six- to sevenfold, contributing to more severe wildfire. Understanding both the stable, historical state of California’s forests, as well as the role of human stewardship in maintaining them, will be key to California’s success in reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire, while effectively managing its forests for climate change mitigation.

“California is expecting its forests to do a fair bit of carbon storage to help meet its greenhouse gas emissions goals,” said study senior author John Battles, a professor of forest ecology at UC Berkeley. “But more and more, we are finding that the resilient forests that were here in the past looked nothing like what we have now, and to get a fire-safe forest, we might have to sacrifice a lot of carbon storage. It's a well-known trade-off, but these findings bring it into stark relief.”

Managing California’s fire-adapted landscapes

For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples have used intentional burning and other forms of resource stewardship to help care for California’s fire-adapted landscapes, and these practices are integral to many tribal cultures. Cultural burning is often guided by a detailed knowledge of the environmental conditions that are most favorable to burning and the effects of the fire. 

“Fire has historically been the primary tool for people to live in this place,” said Bill Tripp, director of natural resources and environmental policy for the Karuk tribe, in a videoproduced by the tribe. “Not only is it rooted into practices that were traditionally employed at different times of the year, it was deeply rooted, and remains deeply rooted, in the ceremonial practices of the Karuk people.”

Research has shown that fire suppression policies in the Klamath Mountains have led to the forest becoming dense and overgrown and have shifted the composition of the forest from fire-resistant hardwoods like oak and more fire-sensitive softwoods like Douglas fir. The inability to burn has also impeded the rights and cultural expression of the Karuk and Yurok people and depleted the supply of traditional foods and other resources on their ancestral lands.

However, while many now agree that frequent fire was once a fixture of many of California’s forests, there remains some debate over the relative effects of Indigenous burning practices versus climate-driven factors, such as lightning, in shaping pre-colonial forests. 

To better understand the historical role of cultural burning in the Klamath Mountains, Knight assembled a team of collaborators with expertise in both paleoecology and the cultural history of the Karuk and Yurok tribes, including some current tribal members. The team also worked with the tribes to obtain permission to collect samples from their land and conduct research using their oral histories and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). For the Karuk tribe, this meant following the principles of the Practicing Pikyav Policy, which is a guide and protocol for collaborative research between university scientists and the tribe.

“It really seemed necessary to talk to the people who live on the land to figure out what the story of this place was, because there's so much more beyond an empirical data set about the history of a landscape,” said Knight, who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the U.S. Geological Survey. “Thankfully, they are open to that and were able to share their history and Traditional Ecological Knowledge with us.”

The study focused on the watersheds encompassing Fish Lake and Lake Ogaromtoc in the Western Klamath Mountains. To estimate how the forest biomass near the lakes has changed over the past 3,000 years, members of the research team collected sediment cores from the two lakes and then painstakingly counted the number of tree pollen grains at each sedimentary level of the core samples. With the help of carbon dating and careful modeling, this data could be used to estimate forest biomass at different times in the past.

Likewise, charcoal counts in the sediment cores revealed how often fires had once burned near the lakes. Clues about the timing of historical fires were also obtained by examining nearby trees for fire scars and comparing the years of burning from tree rings.

Study co-author Frank Lake, a research ecologist for the U.S. Forest Service and a Karuk descendant growing up among the Karuk and Yurok tribes, helped integrate this data with tribal histories and traditional knowledge. In many cases, this ethnographic information helped explain both geographic and temporal patterns in the paleoecological and fire history records. 

For example, fire scars found near the lakes suggested that fires occurred more often near Fish Lake than Lake Ogaromtoc, which is consistent with accounts that the areas around the lakes were used for different tribal purposes. In addition, patterns in fire frequency and forest biomass during the cool, wet Little Ice Age also indicate a significant human influence on the forest.

“If you're trying to detect a signal of increased fire due to human stewardship, having a cooler, wetter climate is a perfect time to do so because it will really stand out in the record,” Knight said. “And that's exactly what we found: More charcoal accumulation, more charcoal production, so, therefore, more fires and decreases in biomass that correspond with that fire.”

While it may not be possible to restore California’s forests to how they were 150 years ago, the findings highlight the critical importance of active forest management in the West, especially as climate change brings warmer and drier weather. To help restore fire resilience and reinstate cultural burning practices in the Klamath Mountains, the Karuk tribe has partnered with the U.S. Forest Service and other organizations to form the Western Klamath Restoration Project, which is dedicated to using forest management techniques rooted in Traditional Ecological Knowledge.

“In the fire-prone West, not managing our forests is not an option,” said study co-author Matthew Potts, the S.J. Hall Chair in Forest Economics at UC Berkeley. “You have to decide how to actively manage a landscape that's at risk for fire, especially when you have lots of people living in those landscapes. The challenge remains in keeping up the momentum and effort towards managing these important resources.”

Additional co-authors of the paper include Lysanna Anderson, Marie Champagne and David Wahl of the U.S. Geological Survey; M. Jane Bunting of the University of Hull; Rosie M. Clayburn, the Yurok tribe’s cultural resources manager; Frank K. Lake, Jeffrey N. Crawford and Eric E. Knapp of the U.S. Forest Service; Anna Klimaszewski-Patterson and James Wanket of California State University, Sacramento; Scott A. Mensing of University of Nevada, Reno; and Alex Watts-Tobin of the Karuk tribe’s Department of Natural Resources.  

This research was supported by funding from the U.S. Forest Service and the National Science Foundation (grants #0926732, #0964261), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (#09ERI003), the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (18-CCI-FH-0007-SHU), the U.S. Geological Survey Land Use Research and Development program; U.S. Forestry Service McIntire-Stennis Cooperative Forestry Program (project 1020791) and the California Agricultural Research Station (CA-B-ECO-0144-MS).

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2116264119 

Book: Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas

 

From celebrated anthropologist Jennifer Raff comes the untold story—and fascinating mystery—of how humans migrated to the Americas.

ORIGIN is the story of who the first peoples in the Americas were, how and why they made the crossing, how they dispersed south, and how they lived based on a new and powerful kind of evidence: their complete genomes. ORIGIN provides an overview of these new histories throughout North and South America, and a glimpse into how the tools of genetics reveal details about human history and evolution.

20,000 years ago, people crossed a great land bridge from Siberia into Western Alaska and then dispersed southward into what is now called the Americas. Until we venture out to other worlds, this remains the last time our species has populated an entirely new place, and this event has been a subject of deep fascination and controversy. No written records—and scant archaeological evidence—exist to tell us what happened or how it took place. Many different models have been proposed to explain how the Americas were peopled and what happened in the thousands of years that followed.

A study of both past and present, ORIGIN explores how genetics is currently being used to construct narratives that profoundly impact Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It serves as a primer for anyone interested in how genetics has become entangled with identity in the way that society addresses the question "Who is indigenous?"

Ides of March Ancient Roman Coin Thought to Be Worn By Julius Caesar Assassin Brutus

 

Eid Mar coin to be sold in May 2022 at Numismatica Ars Classica.

One of the most important gold coins from the ancient world, which is thought to have been worn by a murderer of Julius Caesar, will be auctioned in May 2022, by the leading ancient coin firm, Numismatica Ars Classica. The ‘Eid Mar’
coin was minted by Caesar’s betrayer, Marcus Junius Brutus, to celebrate the assassination of Caesar on the March 15 (the Ides of March), 44 BC; an event widely recognized as one of the great moments in Western European history.

The rare Eid Mar aureus has been on display at the British Museum for the last decade, on long-term loan from a private collector, and is the only one of its type with exceptional provenance, dating from before WWII. The coin was first brought
to the British Museum in 1932 by the expert numismatist, Oscar Ravel. A plaster cast of the coin, which was made during that visit, is still retained by the British Museum today.

The reverse of the Eid Mar coin celebrates the assassination of Julius Caesar with two daggers representing Brutus and Cassius, and a ‘cap of liberty’.

Numismatica Ars Classica

The coin also featured prominently in the British Museum’s exhibition Shakespeare: Staging the World for the London 2012 Olympics. In Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, a soothsayer warns the Roman leader: “Beware the Ides of March.” (The ides referred to the month's first new moon, appearing around the 15th.)

Caesar was brutally murdered by a group of Roman senators led by Brutus and Cassius, in the Senate in Rome. This Eid Mar coin was produced by a mobile military mint by Caesar’s former ally and later lead conspirator, Brutus, once he
had fled to Greece, to celebrate the freeing of Rome from Caesar’s tyrannical rule.

The coin’s design has important distinguishable features. The head of the coin shows a portrait of Brutus with an inscription of BRVT IMP, denoting him as an acclaimed military victor. The reverse of the coin celebrates the assassination: two daggers represent Brutus and Cassius, while Rome’s freedom is illustrated by a ‘cap of liberty’, the Phrygian cap traditionally given to emancipated slaves.

Together this iconography reflects the symbolic rhetoric that followed Caesar’s death around the liberation of Rome, iconography that was adopted in future historical moments to symbolise liberty including the French revolution in 1789-99. So remarkable was this coin that it was mentioned in the writing of ancient historian Cassius Dio in the 3rd century AD.

Coins of this design in gold, rather than silver, were extremely rare, and almost certainly intended as gifts for senior army officers. This particular coin, having been expertly pierced just above the head of Brutus, was highly likely to have been worn by a high-ranking supporter and, it has been speculated, even one of Caesar’s murderers.

The Eid Mar coin head shows a portrait of Brutus with an inscription of BRVT IMP.

Numismatica Ars Classica

The coin will be auctioned by Numismatica Ars Classica at Hotel Baur au Lac, Zurich on the 30th May 2022.

“The Eid Mar coin commemorates one of the most important moments in Western history: the assassination of the dictator Julius Caesar. It is extremely rare to come across an ancient coin with such exceptional provenance, a point illustrated by its inclusion in the British Museum’s display for over a decade. We are thrilled to present the opportunity for a Museum or collector to become part of the story of such a significant piece of ancient history, at our auction in May,” says Arturo Russo of Numismatica Ars Classica.

More info on the Website: www.arsclassicacoins.com