Content area
The Monastery of São João de Tarouca had an occupation of almost seven hundred years and received, between 1998 and 2007, a meticulous archaeological intervention that discovered the complexes that the cistercians monks occupied, as well as they’re belongings.
From the exhumed loot, stands out the numismatic collection that is going to be the study object of this master’s thesis. Every single piece was registered and classified, to make possible the development of the project. This study focused on the Portuguese coin, with the objective of understand the reasons that made the presence of coins in the monastery oscillate. We also studied the foreign coin that was collected on our monastery, so we can understand the relationships of the Tarouca’s monks with people from outside of the complex. We also analysed the “Contos para Contar”, artifacts to help the monks in the calculus and were present on the monastery. The correlation between the pieces and they’re stratigraphic context will also be clarified.
At least, we will relate our study with the chemistry department, through X-ray fluorescence analysis to some of the coins. The main goal was to study the composition of the pieces and understand if the economic situation of the reign had some sort of influence on it.