Osservazioni sulla rappresentatività dei ritrovamenti monetari da centri urbani antichi

Coins found in urban archaeological sites occupy a special place among categories of coin finds; they can undoubtedly represent a valuable source of information for our knowledge of not only monetary circulation but also general economic and social life in ancient Greek or Roman cities, yet it is often not easy to measure the representativeness of a coin sample known for a single site. Case studies concerning the comparison between two (or more) groups of coins found in the same site at different times show that it is sometimes possible to detect significant differences in the structure of these distinct finds. For this reason it seems necessary to be very cautious in studying such coin finds, even if relatively large in number, as a single safely representative sample of the currency present in a certain site.