From Jahrbuch.
FIG. 200. TERRACOTTA MONEY-BOX.
The last type to be described is shaped like a bee-hive, or, as in Fig. [200], like a circular temple, forms which were found convenient for the then favourite design of a deity in a shrine. Among the examples quoted by Graeven[[2713]] is one of the latter shape with Fortune (Fig. [200]), now in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Of the bee-hive form three may be mentioned as presenting interesting features. One with Hermes in a shrine has the maker’s name, PAS AVGV, which also occurs on lamps[[2714]]; another, found on the Aventine, and now at Gotha,[[2715]] has on the front the figure of a victorious charioteer, on the reverse a slit for the coins, and the maker’s name, AEL MAX. D’Agincourt suggested that this type of box was carried about by victors in the games to receive donations. Lastly, there is one recorded to have been found in the Baths of Titus in 1812, but now lost, which contained coins of Trajan, and was inscribed FISCI IVDAICI CALUMNIA SVBLATA. The evidence points to the dating of these two classes in the first century of the Empire, or slightly later.
Terracotta moulds for false or debased coins of the Imperial period have frequently been discovered in different parts of the Empire.[[2716]] None, indeed, have come to light in Italy, but they occur in Egypt, Tunis, France, on the Rhine, in Switzerland, Lower Austria, and Britain. They were first noted by A. le Pois in 1579 at Fourvières, where moulds were found of coins of Septimius Severus and his successors. In 1697 and 1706 more of the same period, of local clay, were found at Lingwell Gate, near Wakefield,[[2717]] in 1704 at Lyons, and in 1764 at Augst, near Basle. In 1829 and 1830 further finds were made at Wakefield, and again in 1869 at Duston, Northants.[[2718]] Numbers have been noted from time to time in the museums of France and the Rhenish provinces, the most interesting find being that made in 1829-30 at Damery, near Épernay, in the Department of Marne. In 1859 a find of 130 moulds contained in a jug was made at Bernard; they appear to have been hastily placed there and left by forgers. At Bordeaux in 1884 finds were made in the ruins of a pottery, and others more recently at Autun and La Coulouche. In 1899 thirty-four moulds were found at Susa in Tunis. The British Museum has a collection of moulds of denarii from Egypt, mostly found at Crocodilopolis (Arsinoe) in the Fayûm; they are of a deep brick-red local clay, but a great number are burnt black.
Nearly all these moulds fall between the reigns of Septimius Severus and Diocletian, but some of those at Bernard go back as far as Trajan, and there are isolated instances of coins of Domitian at one end, of Constantius II. and Julia Mamaea at the other. Caracalla and Elagabalus are frequently represented, and those in the British Museum include Albinus, Crispus, Constantine, Galerius, Licinius, and Macrinus. The Damery find included thirty-nine moulds, comprising types of the coins of Caracalla, the elder Philip, and Postumus; 2,000 pieces of base silver coin, chiefly of Postumus; 3,900 bronzes of Constans I. and Constantius, all evidently made together; chisels and remains of other tools, and groups of moulds still containing the metal, and also lumps of metal which had overflowed from the moulds.
The way in which these moulds were used is as follows. The complete mould was composed of two shallow round boxes with hollow impressions respectively of the obverse and reverse, obtained by impressing the designs from genuine coins into the soft clay. The depth of the hollow was so calculated that when the two were placed together the space represented the required thickness. To cast the coins, a number of these moulds were placed one on the other, and luted with clay to prevent the liquid metal from escaping between the two pieces of each mould; down the side of the column formed by the pile of moulds a hollow cutting was made, at the base of which holes were pierced corresponding to the cavities where the metal was to enter. The metal was then poured into the hollow, and ran in through the holes as required.[[2719]] Sometimes the columns were joined in groups of three 25
image for which a single column served; of this there is an example at Damery, where each rouleau contained a dozen moulds (thirteen discs). In the Cabinet des Médailles at Paris there is an example of one of these rouleaux of moulds, found at Lyons in 1704 (Fig. [201]),[[2720]] with the basin in which they were placed for the casting. At Susa the moulds were fitted slantwise into a bronze tube.
FIG. 201. TERRACOTTA COIN-MOULD.