The Dacian Koson
The ancient Dacian coin known as Koson is one of the most valuable items in Romanias national heritage.
România Internațional, 21.06.2014, 14:02
It was named after the Dacian king Koson and it is the only golden coin known to have been minted in ancient Dacia. Koson succeeded king Burebista, who reigned over a large territory between the years 82 and 44 BC. After Burebista’s death, apparently following a conspiracy, his kingdom was divided into 5 smaller ones. One of them was allegedly ruled by Koson, one of those who had actually planned Burebista’s assassination.
Historical information about the Koson is scarce and contradictory, the very name being a source of controversy. There are documents mentioning the name “Cotiso”, which historians identified with “Koson”. Roman historian Lucius Annaeus Florus, who lived between 74 and 130 wrote “the Dacians cannot be taken away from their mountains. From there, under the rule of king Cotiso, they used to go down and ravage the neighboring lands, whenever the River Danube, frozen in winter, would make access from one shore to another possible. Augustus decided to remove that population, which was very hard to approach. So he sent Lentulus and he set up garrisons and drove them away to the other shore. So the Dacians could not be defeated, only pushed away and scattered.”
Koson got involved in the civil conflict in Rome, between Brutus and members of the second triumvirate (Octavian, Marcus Antonius, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus), as an ally of the first. He then became an ally of Octavian Augustus against Marcus Antonius, whom Roman historian Suetonius spoke about in one of his writings, quote “Marcus Antonius writes that Octavian first promised his daughter Iulia to his son Antonious, then to Cotiso, king of the Getaes.” Cotiso’s identification with Koson is based on a version of Suetoniu’s writing in which it is written “Koson, king of the Getaes”. Other historians reject the idea of Cotiso and Koson being the same person, and they claim they were actually two kings.
As for the koson coin, historians and archeologists say that those that were engraved with the Greek letters making the word KOSON, discovered in the Dacian fortresses in the Sebes Mountains, southwestern Romania, were issued during the reign of that king. The first such coin was discovered back in 1543, and since then thousands of coins have been discovered. The classical coin is an imitation of the Roman one, and has on one side a vulture sitting on a royal scepter, holding bay leaves in its claws. On the other side of the coin there are three men wearing togae, one of them a consul, accompanied by two lectors with pole axes on their shoulders.
The Dacian Koson coins also attracted treasure hunters, not only researchers or aficionados. The area of the Sarmizegetusa Regia site, located in the Southern Carpathians’ western part, has become a place where smugglers, fitted with metal detectors, unearthed precious Koson coins that were later illegally sold in the West. Of late, 26 Koson-type golden Dacian coins have been returned to Romania by Italy, thanks to the joint work carried out by Romanian and Italian authorities. Ernest Oberländer-Târnoveanu is the director of Romania’s National History Museum. He has made an inventory of archaeological items unearthed from Romanian sites that have been repatriated since 2007.
Among them, the Koson coins are a very important retrieval: ” This has been the 11th repatriation operation initiated since the winter of 2007, when important assets of Romania’s national cultural heritage have been unearthed as part of an illegal archeological detection operation carried out at the Sarmizegetuss site and its surroundings. These assets were illegally exported from Romania and are now being repatriated. So far, 13 royal Dacian bracelets were repatriated, as well as 1,024 Koson golden coins, 204 Koson silver coins, 32 Lysimachos coins, minted in Tomis and Callatis, 2 royal Dacian iron shields, and with them, lots of other archaeological and numismatic items. Retrieved so far have been items from the USA, Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain, Ireland and Great Britain. We’re now fortunate enough to see that 27 coins have been returned to Romania, which had been put up for sale in Italy”.
Apart from the 26 Koson coins being returned from Italy, specialists have also announced other 138 Dacian coins of the same type have been scientifically examined. The coins have been discovered by a group of children around Ocolisul Mare village in Hunedoara County.
