Currency bar Letter

Tarquinii, the old Etruscan center whose political power was already in steep decline by the mid-third century BC, produced these cast bronze bars as a pre-monetary exchange medium during a period when Rome was consolidating control over Etruria. The bars functioned as weighed currency rather than coined money — value determined by the scale, not the stamp. Haeberlin's foundational typological work on aes grave placed these pieces within a broader central Italian casting tradition, though the Tarquinian attribution rests on find-spot concentration and iconographic parallels rather than any explicit mint authority.