Novensia: Studia i Materiały (21.2010)

on the reverse is connected with Pharos, that with a walking Artemis with Rhizon. The
iconography of the king’s portrait could be an indication of Ballaios’ true appearance.4
Coins of Ballaios, single finds as well as hoards, have been reported from Risan sińce
the second half of the 19th century. Five bigger assemblages containing only the king’s
coins are currently known; a sixth assemblage contains also other issues beside the royal
ones. A few other coin deposits containing only Ballaios’ issues have been found outside
Risan and outside the Kotor Bay area. Four of the assemblages from Risan, discovered
before World War II, contained from a few to a hundred coins apiece. Their current location
is largely untraceable. The fifth hoard, now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, has
been studied and published. It contained also 10 coins issued by an autonomous Rhizon
mint,5 providing priceless data on the chronology of the coins and their mutual relations.
Regular excavations by the Center for Research on the Antiąuity of Southeastern Europę
of the University of Warsaw yielded morę coins of Ballaios and a relatively large group
of coins of the autonomous PIZO type.6
The “great hoard’’ discovered in 2010, while not the First from Risan, is definitely the
largest — 4656 pieces, weighing altogether close to 15 kilograms.7 As a matter of fact, it
is one of the biggest hoards of ancient coins known, not only from Illyria.8 The overall
number of coins of Ballaios now in existence suggests a greater than previously anticipated
importance of this king and Rhizon under his rule, especially in the context of the history
of the Illyrian State and the tribes related to the Illyrians.
Morę importantly in the case of this find, the hoard was found in situ, in a clay jar of
local production, hidden under a stone flagging inside a room otherwise undistinguished
by its size or furnishings [Fig. 1]. A layer of burning on the floor is indicative of unrest in
the town when the hoard was secreted away — perhaps a raid by pirates or an attack by
another tribe, possibly internal strife, but eąually well a calamitous conflagration that de-
stroyed the settlement. The circumstances of deposition of the hoard suggest the owner
had been pressed for time. Obviously, he never returned to retrieve his property.
A cursory examination of the coins pending cleaning have shown that the hoard con-
sisted of “bronze” pieces exclusively with not a single example in evidence of the one sil-
ver issue that Ballaios appears to have minted in smali ąuantities. It seems that it will be
possible to identify separate series struck with the same die, a feat previously not accom-
plished due to the poor condition of most previous finds. Comparison of the die stamps
should pinpoint the datę of issue of the “great hoard” from Risan and determine a relative
chronology for particular types. This is a unique circumstance, despite the short period of
time that the determination will concern.
Secondly and most importantly, the set includes only coins issued at Rhizon, and more-
over, only one or at the most two subtypes [Fig. 2], Ali bear the king’s portrait facing left
on the obverse and a figurę of Artemis walking to left on the reverse. Other subtypes and
variants are known in the case of coins of the Rhizon type, but in the present hoard this
one subtype predominates, constituting 84% of all of the coins [Fig. 3]. It was also possible

4 Morę on the subject in Ciołek 2011.
5 Gorini 1991, pp. 28-31.
6 The type has been characterized in Ciołek 2011.
7 A detailed study of the hoard, going beyond these

preliminary observations, will be possible after the
coins are cleaned and conserved by specialists from
Montenegro.
8 Mirnik 1981.