К вопросу о цели посольства Наймана и Махеса в Рим, или к просопографии Понтийского царства
Revisiting the purpose of the embassy of Naaman and Mahes to Rome, or to the prosopography of the Pontic kingdom

Summary/Abstract: The paper clarifies the nature and composition of the coin complex discovered during archaeological research of 2019 on the territory of the hillfort called Saraishyq. The total number of coins is 140 items. Two of these are silver coins of the 15th century, the rest are copper pūls of the 14th century and of the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries. In four excavation units, medieval house buildings were revealed to be filled with soil at the end of the 14th century. In the 15th century, more building remains as well as subsequent burials have been deposited there. As a result, archaeologists most often may deal with redeposited occupation layers, and numismatic finds could hardly have been associated with undisturbed contexts at the site. It is perhaps due to the desolation of the occupation area under study, that the overall composition of the coin complex displays a break in coin losses in the 1360s — 1370s. In the 14th century until the 1360s, local markets were provided with pūls bearing names of mints located in the Lower Volga region. The chronological composition of surface finds does not statistically correspond to that of the coins found deep in the ground. The loss of coins on the right bank of the Ural River, in the medieval town of Saraychuq, is established to begin in the 1320s. In 2019, pūls dated back to the turn of the 14th — 15th centuries with unusual tamgha signs were discovered for the first time in the hillfort layers. They could have been minted in the town of Saraychuq since such coins have never been reported to be found elsewhere.

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