Currency bar Crescents with four-pointed star

Tarquinii's bronze currency bars belong to a transitional moment in central Italian monetary history, when cast bronze by weight was still the dominant medium of exchange across Etruria and Latium. The city itself was in sharp political decline by this period — a former Etruscan powerhouse that had concluded a 40-year truce with Rome in 351 BC, then lost it, and by the time these bars were cast had effectively accepted Roman hegemony following the final Etruscan-Roman settlement of 280 BC.

These aes signatum-class objects were not coins in any strict sense but functioned as standardized bronze ingots within a bullion economy. Haeberlin's foundational study remains the primary reference for attributing bar types to specific issuing centers.