The use of coins in religious ceremonies was common in the Greco-Roman world. According to tradition, the dead were accompanied by one or two coins to pay Charon, a ferryman who carried the souls to the underworld in exchange for a few coins.
With the arrival of the Late Antique and Early Medieval periods the situation changed; coins were used less frequently, but the ways in which coins were placed in graves diversified. This has made it possible to identify certain ritual gestures which may have been associated with people from a particular territory and/or with the sex and/or age of the individuals. Traditionally, these changes have been associated with the arrival and consolidation of Christianity, but coins also appear in contexts associated with the new religion.
The region of northern Italy underwent a number of political, social and economic changes between the 3rd and 8th centuries. These transformations have left their mark on the archaeological record. Many necropolises from this period show the consequences of population movements and the adoption of new funerary rites, which also include coins.
Between 2021 and 2023, the MORTI Project (Coins, Rituality, Tombs in Northern Italy in the Late Antique period) systematically analysed a large number of these sites. This has allowed a diachronic interpretation of the ritual use of coins in this geographical area, where there are differences between regions and sometimes between members of the same community.
An analysis of cases from different periods and regions will be essential to understand how this ritual use evolved, as well as to trace possible meanings that help to understand the mentality of these people at such complex periods.
About the lecturer
Noé Conejo is a Postdoctoral Researcher of the Programa Atracción Talento – César Nombela of the Comunidad de Madrid in the Department of Humanities of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
He is the PI of the project 2023-T1/PH-HUM-29289 (BOCM 08/01/2024, ORDEN 4974/2023, 19 December 2023) which studies the use and circulation of coinage in the central Iberian Peninsula from Roman-Republican to medieval times.
Between 2021 and 2023 he has developed the MORTI Project (Money, Rituality and Tombs in northern Italy during Late antiquity) through a Marie Sklodowska Curie Individual Fellowship (number 101025031 H2020-MSCA-IF-2020) at Università degli Studi di Padova.
Conejo has a degree in History from the University of Extremadura, a Master's degree in Archeology from the Universities of Seville and Granada, with an extraordinary award, and a PhD in History, specializing in Archeology, from the Universities of Seville and Lisbon.
His main line of research is ancient economics, focusing on the use and circulation of coins from the Roman, medieval and modern times. He has studied important monetary collections from various archaeological excavations and has collaborated with numerous Spanish and Portuguese museums.
He is a member of the group “De la Turdetania a la Bética” (HUM-152) of the Department of Prehistory and Archeology of the University of Seville and a researcher at the Center of Archeology of the University of Lisbon (Uniarq).