Preliminary notes on the mint of Skotoussa (Thessaly) and coin circulation in the area

The polis of Skotoussa (Pelasgiotis) was one of the first cities in Thessaly to mint coins. In the early period, after 479 BC, silver fractions were struck depicting scenes from the ταυροκαθάψια (taurokathapsia), mainly obols, similar to the contemporary ones of other Thessalian mints: Krannon, Lar- issa, Pelinna, Perrhaiboi tribes, Pharkadon (Histiotis) and Pherai (Pelasgiotis), whose common iconographic choice may reflect some sort of political union. Around the mid-5th c. BC, drachms, as well as hemidrachms and obols, were also struck by Skotoussa, but with new types: the forepart of a horse / a grain emerging from its husk, in incuse square. In this case the minted nominals bore the same images as the coins minted at Pherai (Pelasgiotis) and Methylion (Thessalio- tis). This identity of types may indicate the existence of a second “union” to be further investigated. The preponderance of small coins during these early times still needs to be interpreted. In the 4th century the first bronze issues appeared, which represented the majority of the coin output of the mint, until it was interrupted in 367 BC, while the city was under the control of Alexander of Pherae. Skotoussa resumed to strike its own coinage, presumably in the 3rd century, and perhaps later, on a lower scale, minting bronze issues and only one silver issue. Within the Skotussa Project, the Joint Italian-Greek Archaeological Mission has devoted specific at- tention to the coin finds. It is also planned to prepare a corpus of the coinage of the mint of Skotoussa as a monograph. The coins from surveys, excavations and sporadic finds in the years 2015 and 2016 are almost all bronze, but as they are not yet so numerous only a sketch of the area’s monetary circulation through time can be drawn. Further numismatic studies, thanks to the upcoming excavation campaigns, will likely give us the oppor- tunity to have an increasingly reliable picture of the monetary circulation in this area and thus to better un- derstand the economy of the ancient city and its relations with the rest of the region.