Abstract:

I prefered to introduce the economic and political life of the reign of the emperors Iustinianos I. and Iustinos II. before talking about the coinage system, denominations and the relations with each other. Although the reign of the emperor Iustinianos I. was affected by some disastrous events like Nika revolt and the catastrophic plague which continued more than two hundred years, it was mentioned as a ‘first golden age’ in Byzantine history. The Corpus Iuris Civilis was promulgated and also Hagia Sophia was built in 532-37. Coinages from the reign of the emperor Iustinianos I. which contains gold and copper denominations were regarded on the base of this period. Also relations of denominations and mints were mentioned briefly. In addition to these, some changes in the iconography of coinages occured with the affect of the Christian belief and ideology. Although Roman imperial portraiture, almost always taking the form of profile heads or busts, still continued in numismatic art of Byzantine Empire at that time, facing figures were started to be used and it became a standard Byzantine imperial portraiture type in Byzantine numismatic art. The emperor’s year of the reign in coins’ inscriptions was firstly appeared in the copper denominations of the emperor Iustinianos I. in 538-39. On the right side of the reverse of the copper denominations had the year of the emperor’s reign in Latin alphabetical letters. The reign of the emperor Iustinianos I. brought some changes on the types, iconography and the denominations of coinages. These changes also were survived after the end of the emperor Iustinianos I.’s reign. The reign of the emperor Iustinos II. was the continuation of the emperor Iustinianos I.’s reign in both ideology and the imperial policy. I introduced eight coins which were located in Ödemiş Museum; two of them were solidus, one of them was tremissis and four of them were copper denomination follis and one of them was half follis. I found differences about their times. I researched Byzantine numismatic catalogues to give them the true dates of minting. At the end of this article a catalogue of the above mentioned coins were presented.

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