Cyrenaic coins of Corvo

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The Cyrenaic and Carthaginian coins of Corvo were a hoard supposedly left in the Azores by Carthaginians about 200 BC. The coins were allegedly discovered in 1749 on the island of Corvo in the Azores.

[edit] Podolyn publication

The only source for the hoard's existence was a publication by Johann Frans Podolyn, Göteborgske Wetenskap og Witterhets Samlingar (1778, vol. I, p.106), in a note titled Some Annotations to the Voyages of the Ancient, Derived from Several Carthaginian and Cyrenian Coins Which Were Found on One of the Azores' Islands. Podolyn claimed that in 1761 he met a coin collector at Madrid named Henrique Flores, who showed him nine coins from Carthage and Cyrene allegedly discovered in a hoard on the Azorean island of Corvo in 1749. Flores said they had been located in a black pot near the foundation of a destroyed building.[1]

Podolyn's claim is controversial; the Azores were apparently unknown to ancient geographers and archaeological surveys have not uncovered any evidence of European visitations prior to the modern age of exploration. Most scholars reject the idea of a Carthaginian discovery of the Azores, Patricia and Pierre Bikai stating that the Podolyn claim is "probably nonsense."[2]

[edit] Bibliography

On this material which were published in multiple texts, references that were made common on these coins were published with numismatics. In the Azores, the following works had been published.

  • Alexander von Humboldt. Examen Critique de la Geographie du Nouveau Monde, in the Archive of the Azores, Universidade dos Açores (University of the Azores), Ponta Delgada, 1981, facsimilitudal education from 1881, vol. III, pp. 111-112.
  • José Agostinho. Achados Arqueológicos nos Açores, Açoreana, vol. IV, cha. 1, 1946. pp. 101-102.
  • José Agostinho. As Moedas Cartaginesas do Corvo (Carthaginian Coins from Corvo), Boletim do Instituto Histórico da Ilha Terceira (The Bulletin of the Historic Institute of Terceira Island), Angra do Heroísmo, 1947.
  • Francisco Pimentel Gomes. A Ilha das Flores: da Redescoberta à Actualidade, The municipal chamber of Lajes das Flores, Lajes das Flores, 1997, pp. 18-19.
  • In European publications, between others it appears in the following references:
  • Richard Hennig, Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1927, p. 11-19.
  • Richard Hennig. Erreichnung der Azoren durch die Karthager und die Frage einer Fruher Kenntniss Amerikas, Terrae Incognitae, vol. III, chap. 19. pp. 138, Leiden, 1953.
  • Wilhelm Schawalbacher, Schweizer Münzblätter, November 1962, 22 ff.
  • Lionel Casson. Archaeological Exploration at Corvo, in Archaeology, May/June 1990, pp. 50-55.