Mircea Babeş,
Theodor Isvoranu,
Bogdan Constantinescu,
Viorel Cojocaru

As part of the 3rd stage of the Archaeomet Project, named The elaboration - using XRF and PIXE - of a data base about structures of Dacian silver objects and coins from the national patrimony, 33 Geto-Dacian coins from the hoard found in the dava-settlement of Cârlomăneşti were analysed. This archaeological site is placed in the north-eastern Walachia, the sub-Carpathian area. These coins belong to the Vârteju-Bucureşti type, comprised in the group of so-called imitations of Philipp the 2nd type, because they reproduce, very abstract, a bearded human effigy on the obverse and a horseman on the reverse, like the tetradrachms of the above mentioned Macedonian King but, of course, with visible decreased dimensions and title. Usually, the coins of the type Vârteju-Bucureşti weigh about 7-8 g. In the Cârlomăneşti hoard there are two main categories of issues: in part they were struck but an important batch of coins has made by melting. Their variable aspect results from the technical proceedings which have been used. Although all of them have a scyphate form and seem to be made from an alloy based on silver and copper, the struck coins are of smaller weight (about 4-5 g) and their surfaces are penetrated by numerous oxide traces, whereas on the melted pieces the flan's area have an unitary appearance of the silver stratum and the weight goes beyond 5 g. From the hoard have been analysed 33 coins and a single one from the isolated coins found in the settlement's area. The XRF-analyses have also detected two structural groups, confirming the numismatist's classification. The 20 analysed struck coins are constituted mainly by four elements (silver, copper, tin, lead), while the 14 melted coins comprise only silver and copper. The researches pointed out that the struck coins of Cârlomăneşti present two separated alloy layers, the external one having a higher percentage of silver. Also, the melted coins are made of an unhomogeneous alloy of silver and copper, with different concentrations of the elements in varied points. A relation between the two different groups of coins in the hoard presumably exist, because two struck exemplars were made with the same die like the coin used as pattern for a few melted pieces, but is very difficult to prove if the coins belong to the same mint or whether the mint was situated inside of the Cârlomăneşti dava.