Roman coins in the West Lithuanian Stone Circle Graves Culture : estimated practicality or the dawn of a new phenomenon
ENDuring the Roman period, in the West Lithuanian Stone Circle Graves Culture area and its peripheral territory in south western Latvia, a widely known custom existed to deposit one, two, or three coins, almost exclusively sestertii, in men’s, women’s, and children’s graves; so far, the largest amount of coins found in a grave has been 26. The custom started spreading in the late 2nd century. However, the main inflow of sestertii reached the West Lithuanian Stone Circle Graves Culture area and the custom of coin deposition in graves spread in the period 200 to 260 AD. But the custom did not last long and came to an end in about 270 AD. One to three coins were deposited in the graves of all the social groups of the society. However, they were placed mainly in the graves of individuals with a lower social status, while the graves of the highest social status representatives contained four or more coins. The paper looks into the reasons that promoted the custom of coin deposition in graves, which formed a balance between an evident estimated economic pragmatism and the new burial customs that emerged as a result of the Romanization process and presupposed the changes in the ideology and the worldview of the society in the region in question. [Extract, p. 425]
