PROCEEDINGS OF THE

XIV th INTERNATIONAL NUMISMATIC CONGRESS

GLASGOW 2009
I

PROCEEDINGS OF THE
XIV th INTERNATIONAL NUMISMATIC CONGRESS
GLASGOW 2009
Edited by
Nicholas Holmes

GLASGOW 2011

International Numismatic Council

British Academy

All rights reserved by

The International Numismatic Council
ISBN 978-1-907427-17-6
Distributed by Spink & Son Ltd, 69 Southampton Row, London WC1B 4ET
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THE PATTERN OF FINDSPOTS OF COINS OF

DAMASTION: A CLUE TO ITS LOCATION
DUBRAVKA UJES MORGAN
The position of Damastion, a Greek colony founded in the late fth century BC, has still not been
established with certainty. An analysis of the pattern of ndspots of coins of this town demonstrates a concentration in the area of the rich silver mines of southern Kosovo, indicating that
Damastion should be sought somewhere in that region.1
Historical Information
The existence of a city called Damastion, somewhere in Illyria near abundant silver mines, has
long been known from a passage in Strabos description of Illyria (7.7.8). After describing the
tribes of Epeiros, Strabo says that with these are intermingled the Illyrian tribes who live in the
southern part of the mountainous country and above the Ionian gulf:
For, above Epidamnos and Apollonia as far as the Keraunian mountains, live the Bylliones, the Taulantii, the Parthini and the Brygi. In the
vicinity are also the silver mines in Damastion, where the Perisadyes established a joint rule with the Encheleans who are also called Dasaretii.
Near these peoples, there are also the Lyncestai, the territory of Deuriopos, the tripolitis Pelagonia, the Eordi, Elimeia and Eratyra. 2
Strabos passage provides a general setting for the geographical position of Damastion: it was
somewhere inland, beyond the Illyrian tribes dwelling in the hinterland of the Greek colonies of
Apollonia and Epidamnos, also called Dyrrhachion, but not far from there (Fig. 1). The Taulantii
lived in the hinterland of Apollonia, the Parthini around Epidamnos, the Dasaretii further inland,
with their town Lychnidus, which, according to legend, was founded by Cadmos and Harmonia.
The Bylliones are the inhabitants of Byllis, a town of the Taulantii, located south-east of Apollonia; the Brygi were somewhere between Epidamnos and Lychnidos. The Lyncestai were around
their main town, Heraclea; the territory of De(u)r(r)iopos is to the north of Lynkestis. Eordia and
Elimeia or Elimiotis, are to the south, in Macedonia, and Eratyra is otherwise unknown.

See Ujes 2002, pp. 103-29, and Ujes / Romi 1996, pp. 77-98, for more
detailed study on the position of Damastion.

The edition by Baladi 1989 is used for this quotation of Strabos text;
the translation of the quoted passage from French into English is mine.

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DUBRAVKA UJES MORGAN

Fig. 1. Position of the tribes and regions to the north of Epirus (from Papazoglu 1988b).
Coins of Damastion
This city issued abundant silver coinage, stamped .3 Three denominations are known:

the tetradrachmas, featuring Apollo on the obverse and a tripod on the reverse;

the drachmas, with a female head on the obverse and a very specic representation of a
square ingot of silver with a handle, on the reverse;

and the tetrobols, with Apollo on the obverse and a miners pick on the reverse.

The two smaller denominations manifestly depict this citys mining activity. It however remained
unknown which people founded and inhabited this city and issued this coinage, and where the city
was located.
3

May 1939 provides a detailed study of the coinage of Damastion,

dating it approximately to the fourth century BC.

THE PATTERN OF FINDSPOTS OF COINS OF DAMASTION:

A CLUE TO ITS LOCATION

489

Previous Locations of Damastion

Previously, for more than a century, over thirty scholars have made numerous proposals for the
precise location of Damastion based on the passage of Strabo quoted above (see Fig.2). Several
proposals suggest Epeiros; others point to the hinterland of Epidamnos-Dyrrhachion; one is as
far as central Dalmatia; the majority are concentrated in the territory of the Dasaretii.4 The main
problem with these locations is that they cannot have ever had any silver mines, because of the
geological structure of all these regions.5

Fig. 2. Previous proposals for the location of Damastion.

For details on all the previous localizations indicated in Fig. 2 and the
relative bibliography, see Ujes 2002, pp. 107-10.

For the position of silver mines in the western Balkans see Ujes /
Romi 1996, pp. 91-92, and Ujes 2002, pp. 122-23.

490

DUBRAVKA UJES MORGAN

Several more recent proposals took into account the position of silver mines in the western
Balkans. Some proposals point to the Paionian territory, where ancient silver mines are known between Skoupoi and Pautalia, modern Skopje and Kjustendil see no. 26 in Fig. 2.6 However, these
regions are too far to the east and too deep inside the Balkan hinterland. Also, had Damastion been
in Paionia, Strabo would not have mentioned it twice in connection with Illyria. Proposal under no.
27, near Pritina, is near the silver-mines in southern Kosovo. It is of high interest, although it was
presented without sufcient reasoning.7 Proposal under no. 28, in the Kopaonik mining region, is
in fact Municipium Dardanicum, attested by inscriptions from Roman imperial times, and is too
far to the north from the regions mentioned in Strabos passage.8
My approach is rst to examine the pattern of geographical spread of the coins of Damastion,
which occur in coin hoards and as single coin nds in the western and central Balkans, and second
to compare this result with the position of the silver-ore deposits and mines in these regions.
Additional Literary Information on Damastion from the Vatican Palimpsest
Another passage of Strabo, which has not previously been included in the search for the location of Damastion, provides precious information about this city. The augmentation of the text of
Strabos description of Aegina (8.6.16) by the Vatican palimpsest revealed that Damastion was
founded by fugitives from Aegina and Mende after they had been expelled from their native cities
by the Athenians in the 420s BC.9 This additional information shows that Damastion was not an
indigenous Illyrian town, as had earlier been supposed, but rather a Greek colony founded in the
interior of the Balkans:
The fugitives, together with the Mendeans, founded Damastion in
Illyria, near the silver mines that we have mentioned in the chapter on
the Illyrians. 10
Damastion, a Greek Colony in the Hinterland of Western Balkans
Damastion appears to have been exceptional in two respects:

It apparently was named after its founder, since Damastes or Damastas is an attested Greek
personal name. A similar practice is known with Apollonia in Illyria, founded around 600
BC, which was rst named Gylakeia, after its founder Gylax according to Stephanos of
Byzantium (s.v. Apollonia and Gylakeia).

Unlike most Greek colonies, this city was founded not on the sea coast, but deep in the
hinterland. Similarly, the emporion Pistiros, attested by a psephisma, was founded in the
second half of the fth century BC in the hinterland of Thrace, with inhabitants from
Maroneia, Thasos, and Apollonia (presumably the one in Thrace).11

6
Mack 1952, pp. 161-62, proposed localization of Damastion near the
mines of Kratovo, situated to the East of Skopje, in the territory of ancient
Paionia. Petrova 1991, pp. 191-92, proposed a very vast region ranging from
Skopje in the West to Kjustendil in the East and including the mines of Kratovo.
7
Mirdita 1975, p. 214, without developing his proposal.
8
Sokolovska 1990, pp. 23 and 28, interpreted the Latin inscriptions
with municipium DD as municipium D(amastion) D(ardanorum)
However, the interpretation by Mocsy 1967, p. 157, as municipium D(ar)
d(anicum) is much more plausible, especially in view of the gap of about

seven centuries between the minting activity of Damastion and the Roman
inscriptions from the third century after Christ.
9
Aly 1932, pp. 8-9; Aly / Sbordone 1956, pp. 16 and 212. This passage
was not known by May 1939.
10
The edition by Baladi 1978 is used for this quotation of Strabos text;
the translation of the quoted passage from French into English is mine.
11
For Pistiros see Domaradski 1993, pp. 35-55, and Loukopoulou 1999,
pp. 359-71.

THE PATTERN OF FINDSPOTS OF COINS OF DAMASTION:

A CLUE TO ITS LOCATION

491

Moreover, the Greek colonists of Damastion settled near the silver mines over which there
was a joint rule by Perisadyes and the Encheleans called Dassaretii. The former name is of Thracian origin, which occurs in the Spartokid dynasty of Bosporus and, as Berisades, in the Odrysian
dynasty, while the latter are Illyrian tribes.12 If this combination of names provides a clue to the
geographical position of the place of their joint rule, then Damastion should be sought deep inland,
in the zone of contact between the Thracians and Illyrians.
Such a zone is Dardania (see Fig. 5).13 The ancient literary tradition considers the Dardanians
usually as Illyrians, although some later authors reckon them as Thracians. The Dardanians were
expanding from their core territory in Metohija and Kosovo towards the east, taking over the land
of the Thracian Triballi after these were defeated by Alexander the Great, and thus acquiring even
more of a Thracian population. The epigraphically attested Dardanian onomastics is predominantly Thracian, and partially Illyrian, but it comes only from Roman times, about six to eight
centuries after Damastion was founded. If in Dardania, Damastion was not in the centre of Illyria,
but rather far from it, near the frontier between the Illyrians and the Thracians. This necessarily
means deep inland, and has a crucial bearing on the geographical position of Damastion.
The Pattern of Spread of Coins of Damastion
The coins of Damastion are found all along the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, from Greece,
through Albania, Montenegro, to Croatia (Fig. 3). They are all tetradrachmas. Inland, all three denominations are found in Metohija, Kosovo, the region of Skopje and, maybe, in the westernmost
parts of Bulgaria.14 However, only in Kosovo do the small denominations appear in hoards. In the
nds from southern and central Serbia, and in the hoards from Bulgaria and Rumania, all the coins
are tetradrachmas. A single tetradrachma was found in the excavations of Pistiros, the mentioned
Greek emporion in the hinterland of Thrace, making it the easternmost ndspot of Damastian
coins (too far to the east to t the map in Fig.3).
The pattern of ndspots of these coins, especially the smaller denominations of drachmas and
tetrobols, shows a concentration in the southern part of the territory of modern Kosovo (see the
grey area in Fig. 3). Since smaller denominations circulate principally in the area in which they are
issued, owing to their low intrinsic value,15 this suggests that Damastion should be sought somewhere in modern Kosovo, where there still are abundant silver mines.

12

For more data on Perisadyes of Damastion see Ujes 2002, p. 106.

For Dardanian territories see Papazoglu 1978, pp. 187-94. See also
Hammond 1972, p. 83 and Hammond 1988, p. 33 and map 3. For more
data on Dardanians and their origins see Papazoglu 1978, pp. 173-99, and
13

pp. 210-18, and also Papazoglu 1988a, pp. 191-99.

14
For the details on nds of coins of Damastion and related bibliography,
see Ujes 2002, pp. 111-22.
15
Grierson 1965, p. XIII.

492

DUBRAVKA UJES MORGAN

Fig. 3. The ndspots of coins of Damastion. The larger dots represent the coin hoards with Damastian
coins. The smaller dots represent the single coin nds. The grey area indicates a concentration of
nds, especially the smaller denominations of drachmas and tetroboles, in southern Kosovo.
The Position of Silver Mines in the Western Balkans
The map in Fig. 4 indicates the geographical position of the silver mines in the western Balkans.
The mines in southern Kosovo are at no. 1 and 2; Kopaonik, the Mining Mountain, is at no. 3;
the mines of Kratovo between Skopje and Kjustendil are at no. 4. The mines in northern Montenegro are at no. 5. There are indications that all these mines were exploited from Roman imperial times. The mines at no. 6 and 7 are too far away to the north from the regions mentioned in
Strabos passage.16

16

For the position of silver mines see footnote 5 above.

THE PATTERN OF FINDSPOTS OF COINS OF DAMASTION:

A CLUE TO ITS LOCATION

493

Fig. 4. The Position of silver mines in the Western Balkans (the largest dots): 1 and 2. Kosovo
- ancient, medieval and modern mines; 3. Kopaonik, with the site of the Roman Municipium
DD; 4. The mines of Kratovo - ancient, medieval and modern; 5. The mines in northern Montenegro - Roman(?), medieval and modern.
The directions of spread of the largest denomination, the tetradrachma, are the directions of the
silver-trade along the lines of communication through the Balkan hinterland and along the coast. It
becomes clear that Damastion was on a major line of communication, with an easy and quick access to and from the sea-coast. Such is the trans-Balkan line from Medova-Bay, or ancient Lissos,
to Soa in the centre of the Balkans, which was heavily used throughout Antiquity and the Middle
Ages (this line is shown in Fig. 4).
The localization of the mines of Damastion in southern Kosovo is strongly corroborated by the
geological data for this region, i.e. the presence of numerous rich deposits of silver-bearing ore. In
some shafts of the mines near Janjevo and Novo Brdo, and maybe near Pritina, the silver ore is very

494

DUBRAVKA UJES MORGAN

close to the surface and might have been accessible to ancient miners and their technology, although
until now no specic evidence has been found for mining before the Roman imperial period. It is
however not impossible that later and modern mining-works obliterated the traces of more ancient
mining. Information on the archaeological remains in this region is still not systematised, although
many sites in southern Kosovo and Metohija have yielded some kind of imported materials of
Greek origin. A concentration of Greek archaeological material had been reported from the sites
near the mineshafts of Novo Brdo, so that the possibility that the Greeks were not only trading with
that area, but present in it, in an emporium, was put forward but not connected with Damastion.17

Fig. 5. The area of probable location of Damastion (the background map is from Papazoglu 1978).
17

erskov 1969, p. 18.

THE PATTERN OF FINDSPOTS OF COINS OF DAMASTION:

A CLUE TO ITS LOCATION

495

The Area of the Probable Location of Damastion

The location of Damastion, as indicated by the pattern of ndspots of its coins and the position of
rich silver mines, probably lies in the southern part of modern Kosovo (Fig. 5). This territory was
the land of the ancient Dardanians, the tribe of mixed Illyrian and Thracian descent - which corresponds to Strabos information that the Perisadyes, a dynasty with a name of Thracian origin, had
a joint rule over Damastion with the Encheleans also called Dassaretii, who were Illyrian tribes.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aly, W. (1932), Neue Beitrge zur Strabon-berlieferung, Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger
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Aly, W. / Sbordone, F. (1956), De Strabonis Codice Rescripto, cuius reliquiae in codicibus vaticanis Vat. Gr. 2306 et 2061 A servatae sunt, Studi e Testi 188, Citt del Vaticano.
Baladi, R. (ed.) (1978), Strabon, Gographie, livre VIII, Paris.
Baladi, R. (ed.) (1989), Strabon, Gographie, livre VII, Paris.
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Domaradski, M., (1993), Pistiros - Centre commercial et politique dans la valle de Maritza
(Thrace), Archeologia 44, Warsaw, pp. 35-55.
Grierson. P. (1965), The interpretation of coin nds (I), NC 125, pp. I-XVI.
Hammond, N.G.L. (1972), A History of Macedonia I, Historical Geography and Prehistory, Oxford.
Hammond, N.G.L. / Walbank, F.W. (1988), A History of Macedonia III, 336-167 B.C., Oxford.
Mack, R. (1952), Grenzmarken und Nachbarn Makedoniens im Norden und Westen, Gttingen
(unpublished dissertation).
Loukopoulou, L. (1999), Sur le statut et limportance de lemporion de Pistiros, BCH 123, pp.
359-71.
May, J.M.F. (1939), The Coinage of Damastion and the Lesser Coinages of the Illyro-Paeonian
Region, London.
Mirdita, Z. (1975), Intorno al problema dellubicazione e della identicazione di alcune agglomerazioni dardane nel tempo preromano, Agglomrations forties illyriennes, Colloque international Mostar 1974, CBI ANUBiH Monograph no. XXIV/6, Sarajevo, pp. 201-15.
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Papazoglu, F. (1978), The Central Balkan Tribes in Pre-Roman Times, Triballi, Autariatae, Dardanians, Scordisci and Moesians, Amsterdam.

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Papazoglu, F. (1988a), Les royaumes dIllyrie et de Dardanie, Les Illyriens et les Albanais, Srie
de confrences tenues du 21 Mai au 4 juin 1986, SANU, Colloques scientiques vol.39, Classe des
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darchologie 11, Belgrade, pp. 77-98.