Monete dagli scavi di Elaiussa Sebaste (Cilicia Tracheia)

Bronze coins dated to the 1st cent. BC represent the earlier testimony of the existence of Elaiussa, in Rough Cilicia, quoted in literary sources only in the 1st cent. AD. Byzantine sources mention Elaiussa as a bishop’s siege in the middle of the 5th cent. AD, and as an Armenian episcopate in the XIVth cent. The city lays on a promontory, now tied to the coast, but originally an Island, and on the mainland, and the excavations carried on by Sapienza-University of Rome from 1995 on, still in progress, brought to light a part of the city walls, a craftsman area, a byzantine palace, baths and harbor structures on the island, and the agora, a theatre, a necropolis and a temple with an annexed craftsmen area on the mainland. Numismatic data confirm a continuous occupation of the site from the 1st cent. BC to the 7th cent. AD, and a regional pattern of circulation, represented by the presence of Hellenistic and “Greek imperial” coins struck in Cilician mints, with few exceptions, and by Roman and Byzantine ocins coming from Oriental mints. The analysis of coin finds related to their contexts allows to deepen some of the aspects of the city’s life: non homogeneous occupation phases in different areas of the site, the co-existence in 7th century layers of Late Roman and Byzantine coins, the use of coins in burials.