Archaeologists discover a hidden treasure trove of Persian coins

A small ceramic pot buried beneath a courtyard in the ancient Greek city of Notion turned out to be a stash of Persian gold coins. The cache dates to the fifth century B.C., and the coins match the famous kneeling archer design of the Persian daric.

For people on the ground in antiquity, these coins were paychecks, not curiosities. Ancient sources record that a single daric could equal a month of a soldier’s wages, a detail preserved in a scholarly encyclopedia.

Why a small pot matters

The work is led by Christopher Ratté of the University of Michigan (UM), who directs the Notion Archaeological Project (NAP) through the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. His team has been excavating Notion since 2022 with Turkish colleagues, and the hoard came to light in 2023.

“The discovery of such a valuable find in a controlled archaeological excavation is very rare. No one ever buries a hoard of coins, especially precious metal coins, without intending to retrieve it,” said Ratté. 

Coins hidden and never recovered usually mean a crisis. A pot full of high value currency, left behind and sealed under a floor, points to urgent decisions made during turmoil.

What these Persian coins tell us

The gold pieces are Achaemenid Persian darics, the standard gold issue across the empire from the late sixth century B.C. until 330 B.C.

Darics did not change much in design, which is why specialists sort them by small stylistic details. A securely dated hoard like this one helps anchor that sequence and turns style into chronology.

Minting likely drew on the long running facilities at Sardis, roughly 60 miles northeast of Notion. The city had been a mint center since the Lydian kings, and under Persian rule it continued to play a central role in imperial coinage.

A city on a fault line

Notion sits on the coast of Ionia, a region where Athenian and Persian power rubbed shoulders for generations.

That tug of war shaped local politics, alliances, and, sometimes, the fate of people who lived in these streets.

In 427 B.C., an Athenian commander named Paches used a ruthless stratagem against pro Persian forces in and around Notion, an episode recounted by Thucydides.

The action broke a factional hold and reset the city’s political order under Athenian oversight.

Later, in 406 B.C., a naval clash off nearby shores shifted careers and strategy at the end of the Peloponnesian War. News of the setback at Notium reached Athens and triggered a reshuffle of generals.

Challenge of looting Persian coins

Most known hoards of Persian darics were never found by archaeologists at all, but by treasure hunters with little regard for history.

Coins pulled from the ground without records lose the context that makes them valuable to scholars.

By contrast, the Notion hoard comes with secure dating, location, and association with other artifacts. That makes it one of the rare cases where a gold find is also a historical document, not just a collection of objects.

Gold draws eyes, but context makes knowledge. Because the hoard was found beneath a specific room, in a stratified deposit with associated artifacts, its date is not guesswork.

That context lets historians link the coins to a slice of real time rather than a broad era. It also lets them test big questions about pay, logistics, and imperial administration with evidence that has a clear when and where.

The wider significance

Finds like this matter beyond numismatics. They tie financial practices to real historical events, showing how coinage served as both economic tool and political instrument across contested territories.

For Notion, the hoard provides a local snapshot of life lived in a shifting frontier between Persian and Athenian spheres.

For the study of the Persian Empire, it strengthens the timeline for currency and underlines how coins underpinned the machinery of empire.

How pay and policy connect

If a hoard of darics equals months of wages, it came from organized finance, not casual pocket money.

Imperial coinage in this period served to move value across provinces, settle accounts with allies, and pay mercenary troops on campaign.

The pay level itself is not folklore. Classical writers, citing campaign arrangements, fix a standard monthly wage at one daric, later rising in some cases.

Scholars will study weights, gold content, and die links to see how these coins fit the wider series.

They will compare the style of the archer motif with other known groups to test whether the sequence lines up with the independent date from the building beneath which the pot was hidden.

“This is a find of the highest importance,” said Andrew Meadows, archaeologist at the University of Oxford. The strong archaeological context, he added, can fine tune the chronology of Achaemenid gold coinage.

Photo courtesy of Notion Archaeological Project, University of Michigan.

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