Rethinking early Carthaginian coinage

The coins minted by the Carthaginians in silver, gold, electrum, billon and bronze comprise one of the largest coinages that circulated in the W Mediterranean before the Roman conquest. They provide essential information on both the history and economy of Carthage and on Carthaginian interactions with their neighbors, allies and adversaries. Carthaginian bronze coins, in particular, are frequently found throughout the Punic world, in each of its core regions (N Africa from Tripolitania to Algeria, Sicily, Sardinia, Ibiza and the southernmost Iberian peninsula), as well as in Italy. Yet few accounts of Carthage and the Punic Wars take Carthaginian coinage into consideration, and an emphasis on Greek and Latin literary sources continues to drive the narrative. Of course, in evaluating the political and economic implications of numismatic evidence one needs to distinguish from the start between the issues of the Carthage mint and those of other mints that struck coins under Carthaginian authority. Carthaginian coinage did not follow a linear path of development. As the Carthaginians began to produce coins in Sicily earlier than in N Africa, the start of minting at Carthage deserves careful scrutiny. This essay, based upon an ongoing study of Carthaginian bronze and billon coins, will review the history of modern scholarship and current research on Carthaginian coinage, focussing upon the formative period of the Carthage mint between c.350 and 300 B.C. in order to define the main aspects of its output, its relevance for the monetization of the Carthaginian homeland, and the sequence of the earliest issues.