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402 THOMAS S. NOONANtotaled 313 coins. 79 In other words, 324 or about 95 percent of the knownRus' coins of this era were struck in Kiev, and of these coins, over 96 percentwere sribnyky.The Rus' princes of Kiev selected a very inauspicious time to beginstriking coins. Starting ca. 970, the export of dirhams into Eastern Europebegan to decline sharply, while the influx of deniers had just begun. Thus,even if the Kiev princes had had access to the available dirhams anddeniers—which seems highly problematic considering the finds from Kievand vicinity during the period 989-1019—they would have been hardpressed to obtain sufficient foreign silver coins to melt down for their sribnyky.80 The shortage of silver in the southern Rus' lands at this timeexplains one characteristic of the sribnyky. Nine zolotnyky tested for metalcomposition turned out to be real gold coins of fairly high quality, but of183 Kievan sribnyky examined, 127 or almost 70 percent had no silver atall—they were in fact copper coins. Another 34 sribnyky, or almost 19 percent,were billon coins of low-quality silver. 81 The decline of dirhamimports combined with the hoarding of deniers in northern and central Russiaforced the Kiev princes to strike copper coins or coins made of highlyadulterated silver in lieu of high quality silver coin.The small quantity of sribnyky, most of which had little monetary value,cannot have served any commercial purpose. Since these coins appearedshortly after the conversion of Rus', it seems highly likely that the firstChristian princes of Kiev sought to make some kind of political statementby striking their own coins, which was considered one of the attributes ofsovereignty. Their coins were a visible demonstration of their independenceas rulers.The few coins struck by the earliest Christian princes of Kiev played noreal role, then, in the monetary history of the city. In fact, they were quiteprobably never intended to have an economic function. Rather, thesecopper and billon coins were designed to magnify the prestige of theprinces of Kiev who struck them.Silver IngotsThe attempt to use coinage as a political instrument quickly flounderedbecause it clashed with basic economic reality, i.e., the scarcity of gold andsilver. A prosperous economy that needed silver would have been able to79Sotnikova and Spasski, Russian Coins, p. 13780Sotnikova and Spasski, Russian Coins, p. 137, where it is argued that the raw material forRus' silver coins of the period 988 - 1019 could only have been foreign silver coins.81Sotnikova and Spasski, Russian Coins, p. 139.