One of the mysteries which has occupied the attention of archaeologists in southeastern

Europe over the last decades has been the appearance of large amounts of Illyrian

coinage from the Adriatic cities of Apollonia and Dyrrhachium (Epidamnus) in hoards

from Serbia and northern Bulgaria dating from the first decades of the 1st century BC. While

the appearance of these coins in the Balkan interior has remained hitherto unexplained,

a review of the larger geo-political context in the region during this period reveals

exactly how and when these issues reached the Balkan interior and Danubian region,