The imperial kommerkia of Thrace and Hexamilion (751-775)
Obverse
Two imperial busts: Constantine V (left), bearded, and Leo IV, beardless, each wearing chlamys and crown (only partially imprinted). Linear border.
Obverse
Two imperial busts: Constantine V (left), bearded, and Leo IV, beardless, each wearing chlamys and crown (only partially imprinted). Linear border.
Reverse
Imperial bust above an exergual line: Leo III (only partially visible) wearing loros. Below the line, an inscription of four lines. Linear border.
ΩΝΒ/ΚΟΜΜΕΡ
Κ/ΤΗΣΘΡΑΚΗ
ΣΤΟΥΕΞΑ
ΜΙ.ΙΟΥ
[τ]ῶν β(ασιλικῶν) κομμερκ(ίων) τῆς Θρᾴκης (καὶ) τοῦ Ἑξαμι[λ]ίου
Accession number | BZS.1951.31.5.1743 |
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Diameter | 29.0 mm; field: 24.0 mm |
Previous Editions | DO Seals 1, no. 54.2; and Zacos-Veglery, no. 270. |
Credit Line | Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Thomas Whittemore. |
Translation
τῶν βασιλικῶν κομμερκίων τῆς Θρᾴκης καὶ τοῦ Ἑξαμιλίου.
(Seal) of the imperial kommerkia of Thrace and of Hexamilion.
Bibliography
- Byzantine Lead Seals, Vol. 1 (Open in Zotero)
- Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection, Vol. 3, Leo III to Nicephorus III (717–1081) (Open in Zotero)
- Le Corpus des sceaux de l’empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)
- La Thrace Orientale et La Mer Noire: Géographie Ecclésiastique et Prosopographie (VIIIe-XIIe Siècles) (Open in Zotero)
- Notitiae Episcopatuum Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (Open in Zotero)
Commentary
This seal is similar in its iconography to the folleis, Class 3, of Constantine V (see Grierson, Catalogue, III, 1, 11.1 ff, pl. IX).
Hexamilion (modern Bulayir) must have had significant economic activities, as is shown by our seals from there. The see, a suffragan bishopric of Herakleia, was located at the site of ancient Lysimachia in the middle of the Dardanelles along the Thracian coast; it remained a bishopric until the fourteenth century when it was raised to the status of an archbishopric and metropolis (Laurent, Corpus V/1, 229; Asdracha, Thrace orientale, 249-50, 294-95). In a tenth-century notitia (cf. Darrouzès, Notitiae, 64), Hexamilion is equated with neighboring Chersonesos.