So when I think of the island of Ibiza I think of club music and drunk pasty white and sunburned 18-30s. Not a great image. Not my next holiday destination. But I have just a few minutes and I wanted to keep my coin-a-day promise. I panicked because edits had eaten up the day and switching gears before my 5.30 appointment wasn’t looking feasible. So I said to self, “SELF! you LOVE coins! It can be any coin! What’s the most fun coin you can think off…” And then it hit me, the Pseudo Ebusan Coins from the around the Bay of Naples. Could I find a picture?! Nope. Reminds me that tracking a good one down for the book will take some doing. Anyway, you can read all about them in real scholarship. The gist of it is that the Island of Ebusus (Modern Ibiza) made some scrappy bronze coins with a funky Egyptian diety on them named, Bes. I take no responsibility for the potential misinformation after that last link. I just put it there in case you needed a visual for the squat full-frontal pot bellied guy with his tongue stuck out. Anyway, some very clear numismatists who did not get all stuck on the image on the coins but rather looked at distribution patterns of finds and other things have shown that imitations of this small denomination were made in Pompeii or thereabouts. Why is that cool? Basically it shows a demand for small change that wasn’t being met by state production and is shows that the prototypes for what would spend in the market place weren’t Roman even in an Italy dominated by Rome. That has some rich rich potential. Okay I’m off…
Liv Mariah Yarrow 