Employing numismatic evidence in discussions of early Christianity in the Lycus Valley : A case study from Laodicea

[Extract] This paper offers an analysis of the significance of numismatic material for our understanding of early Christianity in the Lycus Valley. Attention will also be given to methodological issues pertaining to employing numismatic evidence in linguistic, historical, and theological perspectives in Asia Minor.¹ Cognizant that the geographical demarcation of the Lycus Valley is a modern and relatively artificial boundary and that trade, com- mercial relations, and other interactions were more geographically fluid, we will investigate a case study related to Laodicea. This study could easily, and methodologically more plausibly, be expanded to include coinage of the immediate locale (Cibyra, Colossae, Laodicea, Hierapolis, Hydrela) and the broader region of Phrygia (Cadi, Aezani, Synaus, Ancyra, Dionysopolis, Apamea, Fulvia/Eumenea, Sebaste, Eucarpia, Sibilia, Acmonea, Synnada, Iulia, Prymnessus, Docimeum, Appia, Cotiaeum, Midaeum, Amorium, Philomelium). Konrad Kraft, for example, has identified con- nections between so-called coin workshops through a network of obverse die-links throughout Asia Minor.1 Kraft estimates that there were approxi- mately twelve workshops servicing over two hundred cities minting coins pre-Septimius (193 CE), that one workshop could service more than ten cities simultaneously, and that the variety and output of new types seem linked to the availability of an engraver (in Phrygia, for example, the Apa- meia workshop in 200–205 CE and the Sardis workshop in 242–247 CE).²