Coinage of the “Sirmium” group from the early medieval cemetery of Mengen-Hohlen/Merzengraben (grave 12)

Sa？etak More than 85 years ago, the German archaeologist Joachim Werner, a reknowned expert for the archaeological Great Migration period, published one of his first scientific works, devoting it to the coin finds discovered in one of only fifty-some graves from the Merovingian period excavated until then at Mengen (Kr. Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald) in the southwestern part of the German state of Baden-Württenberg. In an early Merovingian grave (gr. 12), in addition to numerous other finds, in 1933 seven silver coins were discovered with a then rarely known provenience, today on the contrary well-known as the “Sirmium” group. Both then and today, this represented the only multiple find of coins of the “Sirmium” group from the period of Ostrogothic rule discovered during systematic archaeological excavations, and not in the original area of the minting and distribution of this coinage (Pannonia Sirmiensis) but rather in the considerably distant Frankish-Alammanic region. In his publication, Werner supplemented his analysis and comparisons with excellent descriptions and photodocumentation, because of which even today numismatic science is thankful to him. This all enabled that the creation and minting of the silver coins discovered in grave 12 can be dated today to the period from AD 512, perhaps somewhat later when the earliest had been created and minted, to AD 520, when the latest coin from the Mengen find had been minted