International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Maria Vrij
University of Birmingham, Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham, United Kingdom; 
[e-mail]
Ἀπόδοτε οὖν τὰ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι καὶ τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ τῷ Θεῷ.’: 
Justinian II, the Image of Christ and Taxation
The appearance of Christ on regular issues of Byzantine gold and silver coins under Justinian 
II is one of the most discussed topics in Byzantine numismatics. The event even appears in the 
accounts of the Greek and Arabic writers Theophanes the Confessor and Baladhuri. The appearance 
is linked by these ninth century authors to relations between the Byzantine Emperor Justinian II 
and the Umayyad Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik, and by some modern Byzantinists to Canon 82 of the 
Council in Trullo. Yet there is another possible factor at play.
Matthew 22:21, Mark 12:17 and Luke 20:25 told the Byzantine Christians to do both their 
financial duty to Caesar and their spiritual duty to God, but what happens when Caesar is the 
representative and servant of God? Could it be that the appearance of Christ on the coins used for 
taxation as the rex regnantium and Justinian II as a servus Christi was intended to make the link 
that by doing your financial duty to your Christian Caesar, you were simultaneously doing your 
spiritual duty to God?
If this was the case, why was the image rejected at the provincial mints (excepting Sardinia), 
by subsequent emperors before the advent of Iconomachy, and even by the empress and emperors 
of the Iconophile interlude, returning only following the ‘Triumph of Orthodoxy’ in 843?
Vera Guruleva
State Hermitage Museum, Numismatic Department, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation; 
[e-mail]
A Hoard of the Fragments of Byzantine and Imitation Coins 
XIII Century from the Territory of South-West Rus’
The paper is devoted to the hoard, found by chance in 2011 near the town of Kamenetz- 
-Podolsk (Ukraine). Now it is kept in a private collection in Moscow.
Lately this hoard was provided me for studying. It consists of 297 fragments of the concave 
billon coins with a total weight of 95.17 g. Fragments have different shapes: square, rectangular, 
triangular, and trapezoidal. They got such a result by cutting coins on several pieces.
Weight of the fragments ranged from 0.06 g to 0.78 g, but 2/3 of its form a group of the weight 
range from 0.21 g to 0, 40 g. 
Preliminarily it is possible to recognize some coins of Latin States types T and U, small module 
type A, probably Empire of Thessalonica, Manuel Comnenus-Ducas.

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