The conventional approach to ore provenance studies of ancient silver coins and artifacts has been to first analyze and then try to match them to published data about mining districts, a difficult task given our incomplete knowledge of these. While literary sources are useful to identify possible provenances, they potentially bias interpretations proper because of a variety of limitations of their time. Archeological evidence in the form of mining shafts, galleries, spoil heaps, and tools also provides a tangible and reliable record of mining, but dating such activity can be problematic and the record is inconsistent. Here we propose a new approach driven by Pb isotopic data rather than numismatic groups. Statistical analysis of Pb isotopic data is used to identify ore-defined isotopic clusters. This new method is based on an algorithm that predicts the number of isotopic clusters necessary to fulfill the simple condition that variance within isotopic clusters is minimized whereas inter-cluster variance is maximized. Since each cluster reflects a discrete geological episode within a particular environment broadly datable to a specific Pb model age, it can be identified as a potential source exploited by ancient miners. We explore the potential of this method in two examples using data from coins and ores respectively. In the first example, Roman Republican silver coins form three 'end-member' clusters sourced in mining districts with Cenozoic, Mesozoic, and Paleozoic Pb model ages. The example demonstrates how sources of silver used to mint coinage of the Roman Republic shifted within 50 years of the end of the Second Punic War in 201 BCE. In the second example using Aegean galena samples, Pb isotopes distinguish components with model ages datable to the Hercynian basement, the recent Aegean tectonic province, and Cyprus, noting that significant silver mining districts may remain unidentified in either Spain or the Aegean world. We further clarify a number of potential analytical issues and advocate that users of Pb isotopes for tracing archeological artifacts measure all four lead isotopes and inspect the 12 proposed isotope combinations in order to select those that provide the best representation of the data. We also emphasize that full advantage should be taken of the geologically informed parameters (model age and Th/U/Pb relationships) to identify the geological context of metal sources.

Silver mining helped transform Athens from a quiet backwater ca. 600 BCE to a dominant regional and naval power a little over a century later, but despite having large argentiferous ore deposits and being an early minter, she did not initially use much native silver for her coinage. In this paper I identify technical and geopolitical factors which explain this. I also explore the related and controversial questions of the extent to which the Athenian State benefited from the subsequent massive exploitation of the Laurion deposits, and the nexus between silver mining, monetisation of the economy, and political development.

Can the drachmas in the 'laws of Solon' be explained as silver weights, used in the Athenian economy as a silver standard before the adoption of coinage in the second half of the sixth century BCE? I believe the answer is a firm no. In this paper I marshal historical, archaeological, numismatic and literary evidence to demonstrate that pre-Peisistratid Athens had an essentially agrarian economy in which local trade was usually denominated in barley, and weighed silver was used only to a limited extent in foreign trade and travel. It was the expanding trade of the Peisistratid era that led to the adoption of coinage, following a well-established Ionian model.

What were axones and kurbeis, and why are they important to understanding law-making in late archaic and classical Athens? This paper presents a new solution to the long standing riddle. It is based on a comprehensive collection of the literary and inscriptional sources which are summarised in chronological order, and analysed by shape, material, content and period. It demonstrates that kurbeis were 3-sided, free-standing, wooden objects used throughout the Greek world in the archaic period. As such, they were precursors of stelae bearing authoritative texts, including laws. Axones were 4-sided, wooden objects, probably rotating, upon which only the legislation collectively known as the 'laws of Solon' was inscribed. It is argued that these laws were gradually enacted from the time of Drakon and were kept in a variety of places according to subject matter. At the end of the fifth-century, the anagrapheis responsible for the laws' republication reinscribed them on the axones to sort out the legal confusion entailed in the previous haphazard system, and they were kept in the Metroon. The first law they reinscribed was Drakon's homicide law with a copy on stone for public display.