L’atelier de Carthage et la diffusion de la monnaie frappée dans l’Afrique vandale et byzantine (439-695)

This article offers an update of numismatic research and monetary history studies on the Carthage mint in the Vandal and Byzantine period in which the author has been participating for the last three decades. It considers first the various problems in the dating of Vandal anonymous issues, many of which can still be debated in the absence of clear hoard evidence. The iconography and inscriptions of Vandal coinage illustrate the ambiguous status of the kings who never claimed more than the title rex and who respected de facto the imperial monopoly of gold striking, while advertising the provincial values of the Roman elite. It is thus unique among contemporary Germanic coinages which were less creative and imitated closely the Roman model by acknowledging the emperor’s supreme authority as federate or clients. The successive Byzantine coinage in Carthage took over part of the monetary tradition set up by the Vandals and developed one of the most original productions in the Empire as regards metrology, fabric and iconography. It was apparently more widely distributed in the Mediterranean world and further to the north than the Vandal coinage. Finds of both coinages, however, ranging from Britain and Austria to Syria and Palestine, provide clear evidence of the large influence and extended network of African exports to the late 7th c., as does the ceramics distribution pattern with which they should be compared in greater detail. [Author and M. Featherstone]