Frankish Corinth, 1996: The Coins

T HE EIGHTH SEASON of excavation of the Frankish Complex produced 245 coins, most of them of billon or bronze, of which it has been possible to read 219 pieces.1 Most of them come from relatively young strata, which explains, as it did in the past seasons of excavation in the same area, the better-than-average ratio of readable coins to the total number recovered: better than 89 percent. (In the preceding seven years the ratio has ranged from 86 to 75 percent.) This report also includes a small number of coins (25 specimens) found in the Frankish Complex in past seasons (1990-1995) but somehow omitted from the earlier accounts. Of the sum total of all these coins, most were in an advanced state of decay, few of them qualifying as museum pieces. Advice in deciphering coins, rare and otherwise, came from several colleagues. I am in their debt.2 The coins included in the Catalogue fall into the following categories: