ABSTRACT
Svante Fischer 2020. Th e Late Roman and Early Byzantine Solidi of the
Stiernstedt Ancient Coin Collection.
Journal of Archaeology and Ancient History. 2020, No. 28 pp 1–26. http://urn.
kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-426054
Th is is a study of 33 Late Roman and Early Byzantine solidi from the period
394-565 that are kept in the Stiernstedt Ancient Coin Collection. Th e solidi
were acquired in the late nineteenth century by the co-founding president of
the Swedish Numismatic Society, August Wilhelm Stiernstedt. After his death,
the solidi along with 2,434 other coins were published as a coherent assembly,
the Stiernstedt Ancient Coin Collection (Heilborn 1882). Th e entire collection
was acquired at a sale from the Bukowski auction house in Stockholm
by the Swedish-Texan antebellum cattle baron and gilded age banker Swante
Magnus Swenson the same year. Together with many other coins and various
prehistoric objects acquired in Sweden, the Stiernstedt Ancient Coin Collection
was donated by Swenson in 1891 to the State of Texas under the name of
the Swenson Collection. Th e Stiernstedt Ancient Coin Collection is currently
kept at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of
Texas at Austin. Th e study concludes with a catalogue of the 33 solidi. In the
commentary, I have tried to identify and recontextualize the solidi by comparing
them to recorded hoards from Scandinavia and the European Continent as
well as unprovenanced solidi in Swedish and European collections.
KEYWORDS
Late Roman Empire; Scandinavian Migration Period; Roman Solidus;
Wilhelm August Stiernstedt; Coin collection; 19th century antiquarianism;
Scandinavian Archaeology; Late Roman and Early Byzantine Numismatics