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A gilded coin unearthed at the site of a medieval fortress in Bulgaria indicates the riches of the people who survive there during the early age of Ottoman Turkish rule , according to archaeologists .
A team from the Rousse Regional Museum of History launch the coin earlier this year during excavations at the village of Cherven , near the Danube river and Bulgaria ’s northerly border with Romania . It is likely from theByzantine Empire , and other coins like it are sometimes attributed to John III Doukas Vatatzes , who was the emperor butterfly of Nicaea — a Byzantine successor state — from 1222 until 1254 .
The gold coin appears to be from the Byzantine Empire in the early 13th century, but archaeologists think the find may date from more than 100 years later.
The coin shows two bod on one side , one of whom is dressed in the typical robe of a Byzantine Saturnia pavonia .
ButSvetlana Velikova , an archaeologist at the museum who is moderate the excavations , told Live Science that such coins were also minted by the Latin Empire , a state founded by a Crusader army that displace and occupied the imperial city ofConstantinople — now Istanbul — in 1204 .
Velikova said that late cogitation had suggested that , rather than interrupt the known coinage , the Latin Empire ’s rulers chose to mint impersonation of Byzantine coins , until Constantinople was reconquered in 1261 . The thirteenth - century - styled coin was also much lightheaded than it should have been — about three - quarter its original weight — which indicate it had been resized in accord with fourteenth - century standards for the area ’s atomic number 79 coins , she said .
The gold coin and other artifacts were unearthed in the ruins of a fortified medieval town near the modern village of Cherven.(Image credit: Svetlana Velikova)
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These details , along with its location , suggest the coin may date to the first year after Cherven was conquered by the Ottomans in 1388 , Velikova said .
Fortress wall
Archaeologists have excavate around Cherven for more than a century , Velikova enjoin . Ruins near the settlement show it was an important town during the Second Bulgarian Empire , which ruled from 1185 until the imperium was entirely conquered by the Ottomans in 1396 .
Three other gold coin of the same eccentric were found nearby in 1975 , Velikova said , so it seems that local rulers had sometimes permitted the enjoyment of alien coin , perhaps to make up for their own deficiency of gold .
The latest gold coin and other artifact — including arrowheads , jewelry and pottery fragments — were found during excavations along what had been a defensive wall on the western side of a gothic fortress at Cherven , she said .
Early excavations at the site indicate that the finds in this part of the medieval town date from soon after the 1388 conquest.(Image credit: Svetlana Velikova)
Until now , archaeologists thought the people who be in the western part of the town were broadly speaking poor . But the new find indicate that at least some were wealthy , Velikova said .
Medieval empire
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The archaeological site near Cherven has been excavated over more than 100 years; the latest excavations are in an area that was part of a fortified wall.(Image credit: Svetlana Velikova)
The Second Bulgarian Empire was a major power in the medieval Balkans and a rival of the Byzantine Empire .
But both the Bulgarians and the Byzantines were also threatened by the Ottoman Empire , which already occupied many former Byzantine territories in the East .
Bulgaria remain an Ottoman district for roughly 500 old age after it was capture in 1396 ; and the Ottomans get on to conquer Constantinople in 1453 .
Archaeologists think that the new finds may date to the first years after the conquest of the medieval town by Ottoman Turkish armies in 1388.(Image credit: Svetlana Velikova)
