Towards the end of the 2nd century BC the quaestor Q. Lutatius Cerco (RRC 305) and two moneyers of the gens Fonteia (RRC 290; RRC 307) minted denarii with a ship on each reverse. The images of coins of the latter two in particular differ in several details, which due to their faulty and inadequate descriptions hinder interpretation. On the one hand, the images of the ships on the Fonteian...
To understand the early stages of coinage I study the relation between building activities and the origins of minting. Already in 2000 Kenneth Sheedy concluded that there was a link between Parian coin production and building activities of the Parians. Was Paros an exception or was there a structural link between public building and coinage? To answer that question, the investigations...
This paper will discuss a set of numismatic evidence belonging to the brief Parthian occupation of Syria (51 BC and 41-40 BC). Previous studies have not sufficiently considered the attribution of the tetradrachm (S.44.1) with regard to its own historical context, seeking to determine whether this coin type belongs to either Orodes II (Gardner 1877, Wroth 1903, Sellwood 1980) or prince Pacorus...
During Lucius Verus’ Parthian War (AD 164-7), a certain mint (or mints) in Osrhoene produced a series of denarii to pay Roman troops. The identity of these mint cities has been a matter of speculation, with some such as Hill (1922) attributing them to “uncertain mints”, while Babelon (1893) assigned one group with the reverse legend “ΒACIΛEYC MANNOC ΦIΛOPWMAIOC” to Edessa and those with the...
The identities of the engravers of James VI’s 9th Scottish coinage (1605-9) have not been satisfactorily established in the secondary literature. Burns (1887) and Cochran-Patrick (1875 and 1876) posited conflicting attributions. Cochran-Patrick ascribed the work to Thomas Foulis, an engraver based at the Edinburgh mint, whereas Burns credited James Acheson, an engraver employed at the Tower...
The key to understanding the level of monetary use is to reconstruct the quality of the division of labour and the accumulation of competence. The question of the degree of monetarisation of local markets appears to be of central importance. What significance did the markets play? Who generated the demand for goods and services that went beyond the usual compulsory fiscal levies and labour...
This paper will deal with coins found in three insulae of Aventicum/Avenches (CH), capital of the Helvetii during the Roman period. Two recently excavated insulae (3 and 15) have provided testimony of houses constructed soon after the integration into the Roman Empire. Insula 13 hosted two luxurious houses, probably properties of high ranked personages. The archaeological context of the coin...
Non-state coinages have not received the same level of scholarly attention as state issues. Yet they have huge potential to help us understand not just non-state coinages of today but also money more broadly, how types become accepted and successful, or not. With over 10,000 issuers within 25 years British 17th-century trade tokens provide an excellent field for exploring these themes and many...
Analysis of the coinage of Narbo Martius in southern Gaul sheds more detailed light on Roman expansion into the western Mediterranean compared with literary accounts of the period. The Romans founded Narbo Martius as the first Roman colony outside of Italy in 118 BCE, and its coinage, in startling iconography, depicts a triumphant Gallic warrior riding a biga and carrying a carnyx and a Gallic...
The paper provides an up-to-date status of the research on the coinage of the Characenian kings Attambelos IV (A.D. 54/5 – 64/5) and Attambelos V (A.D. 64/5 – 73/4) in Mesene (southern Iraq). While most researchers are familiar with the bronze tetradrachms of Attambelos IV and V, this paper covers also the rare bronze drachms and the small change in lead of Attambelos IV as well as the Arabian...
Many mines had been in use over several millennia but most ancient workings have been damaged and jumbled by the more recent extraction phases and have become exceedingly difficult to identify and date. For silver mines, isotopes offer a unique opportunity to resolve this conundrum. Over 95% of the 109Ag/107Ag ratios measured in silver coins from different origins, such as Ancient Greece and...
The paper presents two stages of monetization in 13th-century Bohemia: coin renewal (renovatio monetae) connected with short-lived coins (deniers, pfennigs, bracteates) and debasement reflected the circulation of long-lived coins (groschen). With references to the coin hoards of Levínská Olešnice (Eastern Bohemia) and Fuchsenhof (Upper Austria), which dated back to the 1280s, the author argues...
A significant number of coin hoards dated to the period 550-350 BC is kept at the Hellenic Numismatic Museum, attesting the long history of the city-states’ consolidation. These hoards are of a major importance since most of them were found in an archaeological context or at least, their findspot and conditions are known in a certain degree.
The aim of this paper is to present this material,...
While foundationdeposits over very diverse periods and regions are well-known to both archaeologists and numismatists nevertheless these are often not noted in scientific literature or archaeological reports. Indeed, only the most obvious and best-documented cases are generally considered as foundation deposits. Consequently, studies on this subject have almost exclusively tended to address...
Although they account for only a small part of the coinage struck by the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kings, gold coins have played an important role in historical reconstructions of the period, not least the unique 20 stater coin of Eucratides I (apparently the largest precious metal coin produced in Antiquity) and the octadrachm of Euthydemus I. Both these unique objects have recently been...
Au moment du passage au système décimal et au Franc (1795), Augustin Dupré est graveur général des Monnaies depuis 4 ans. Jusqu'à cette date le graveur général se contentait de produire les poinçons qui étaient envoyés aux ateliers. Le graveur particulier de chaque atelier prenait alors le relais pour produire lescoins.
Pour la première fois, il devient responsable de la production des pièces...
Particularly in recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the research on monetisation in the European Middle Ages which generated some relevant publications. A significant input came mainly from the fields of economic and social history.
In my talk I propose to outline the history of research into the monetisation in the Middle Ages, discussing the impact of different past...
Sicily has been the focus of numerous representations on Roman coins, from the early Republican coinage to the Augustan period. This contribution offers a comprehensive and up-to-date numismatic study of the main gold and silver issues which refer to the first province of Rome. The iconographic analysis, the study of the circulation of coins and the quantification of each series adds to our...
A couple of years ago, I was able to analyse some 10,000 coins and medals in the collection of Teylers Museum, Haarlem, the Netherlands, with a handheld X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyser. Since then, I have been working on my own through this data. In this paper I present the data from 196 emergency coins from the period 1529-1814, mainly produced in the Low Countries (the Netherlands and...
Different indicators have been used to investigate the level of monetisation in early medieval Scandinavia, such as patterns of coin loss or volumes of coin production. In this paper, it is argued that coin jewellery can also provide interesting insights into the subject. What happened to the ancient practice of wearing coins as pendants or brooches when coins began to be produced in...
This paper seeks to bring together the evidence for three different case studies which document the counterfeiting of Roman silver coins in Southwestern Switzerland, from the Caesarean conquest to the early Augustan period. While patchy and heterogeneous in nature, the available evidence, in the form of manufacturing tools and end products, including a deposit of plated coins from Genève,...
My research is based on recently collected but not yet published data on coin finds from the rural hinterland of the German part of the Lower Rhine limes, i.e. from the villa landscape in the loess area. The monetization of this area has not been studied yet, as numismatic research is focused on the forts and urban centres on the Rhine. The composition of the data is unique, since it includes...
Für einen Historiker, der sich mit der Geschichte der Antike befasst, sind Münzen eine der wichtigsten Quellen, um etwas über die Vergangenheit zu lernen. Die Idee der aeternitas des römischen Kaisers, die Gegenstand meiner Forschung ist, war am stärksten in der kaiserlichen Münzprägung verwurzelt, die eines der wichtigsten Ausdrucksmittel (und Übermittlungsformen) ideologischer Inhalte für...
Starting from the third century BC, the Oscan-speaking communities of the Central and Southern Italy began to strike autonomous coin issues based on the earlier samples of the Magna Graecia mints. The coins attributed to the Frentani, were struck in bronze, bearing Oscan legend, with the exception of coins from Larinum, whose legends are in Greek or in Oscan, in the Latin alphabet. This...
Under the overlordship of the Achaemenids Lycia consisted of several tribal units led by different dynastic clans. The population was dispersed over a great many isolated valley systems, but shared a number of distinct cultural traditions as, for example, a common language and writing system. When coinage was introduced to the area at the beginning of the 5th century BC it soon evolved from an...
Giuseppe Marra, an Italian soldier, was captured by the Allies in Sicily during Operation Husky (July 1943). Marra was prosecuted by a military court of the Allied Military Government of the Occupied Territories (AMGOT) for looting 24 Sicilian silver coins of Philip III (1598-1621) and Philip IV (1621-65). My paper examines new records to report on this event.
First, I contextualise the...
La publication d’un multiple d’or inédit de Constantin Ier pour l’atelier de Trèves est l’occasion de faire le point sur la date de l’introduction du solidus dans les domaines de Constantin, de dresser un inventaire des multiples de l’atelier de Trèves, de les comparer avec des pièces unifaces apparues récemment sur le marché numismatique et de revenir sur les trouvailles exceptionnelles...
In the 11th and 12th century complex transformation processes took place in Eastern Austria, resulting in the consolidation of the manorial and the economic structures. There was a growth of urban markets and regional trading areas, and an increase in the construction of fortifications. In the context of the expansion of the country, these developments contributed to a comprehensive formation...
The use of coin images for the purpose of propaganda considerably increased and became more systematic with the beginning of the Principate. The reverses of the denarii of the triumvir monetalis Petronius Turpilianus seem to refer to some important and recent events of the year in which they were minted – the notorious return of the Parthian standards, the execution of some political rivals of...
In Pamphylia the production of coins started in the Achaemenid period when Aspendos and Side began with minting silver coins on the Persic standard. The exact chronology of the earliest coins of the two cities has not yet been exactly determined. The dating confined to the beginning and the middle of the 5th c. are under discussion. Although Side and Aspendos were neighbours, and their...
The Latin colonia of Cosa was founded in 273 BCE and situated on a promontory overlooking the Mediterranean Sea in Central Italy. While the city has been studied extensively concerning its history and architecture, its socio-economic interactions with the surrounding region, including the full reach of its coinage that was minted at the colony until the mid-third century BCE, has not been...
This project started with excavations in Lamego by the company Arqueologia & Património between 2011 and 2016, which brought hundreds of Roman coins to the surface. The goal was to catalogue all of them, interpret their straigraphic distribution and reconstruct the coin groups as they were at the time of loss. Thus, two groups were identified; one with 161 coins and another with 700; the...
Social and economic change left its mark on medieval art. This is true also of the progressing monetisation of European society between the 8th and 13th centuries. This talk will focus on possible correlations between regional tendencies and perception of monetisation processes, and the representation of coins or money in visual art. What influence of the regional status of coined money is...
The authors discuss an episode of the Long Turkish War (1593-1606), the Ottoman campaign of 1595 in Wallachia, in the light of the numismatic material. A range of Wallachian coin hoards ending in or around 1595, whose dating is based on either European coinage or Ottoman coins of Murad III, provides information on the actions of the Wallachians and their allies to prevent and repel the Ottoman...
Recent research would suggest that some of the earliest coinages of Caria (c. 530-500 BC) were struck in connection with the activities of the Achaemenids, and in some instances, as a reaction to their rule in that region. Carians had their own language and cultural traits that are reflected on some of their coin issues, especially in the 5th century BC. The Greek foundations, all established...
As part of MeBic project (the upload of Milan Coin Cabinet collections) a significant set of coins was selected to improve the website. This is a group of ancient coins from the Lagioia collection, mainly issues of local Apulian mints and other local mints; the collection has been kept in the Milan Coin Cabinet for a long time, but has not yet been fully and systematically studied. It includes...
The Mascarene Islands (Mauritius and Réunion), a French overseas territory during the 18th century, are an interesting case for examining the complexity of money in a colonial context. The specificity of the Mascarene monetary system is largely linked to the insular and colonial context that shapes the means of currency provision and monetary practices.
I wish to explain the diversity of...
Bernhard Woytek and Dario Calamino have proposed the following three main categories:
- issues combining the Latin name of the emperor and imperial titles on the obverse with a Greek legend on the reverse
- "pseudo-bilingual" issues, with imperial names and titles in Greek and a conventional mark of authority in Latin
- issues regarded as bilingual "by mistake".
The aim of our paper is to...
More than 50,000 Islamic dirhams have been recovered on the post-1945 territory of Poland. While most had been minted by the Abbasid Caliphs and the Iranian Samanid dynasty, the Buyid coinage constitutes merely a fraction of this pool (approx. 300 coins). This however, does not reflect the significance of the Buyid dynasty within the political and economic landscape of the Islamic world in the...
A very recent study of monetary circulation in Roman Aquileia during Late Antiquity included an analysis of patterns of coin distribution across the north eastern border of the Diocesis Italiciana. It was found that during the period under study the defensive system known as Claustra Alpium Iuliarum became a closed frontier for the circulation of coins between Italy and the Balkans. This area...
In the early 1970s rescue excavations funded by the Dumbarton Oaks Center and Kelsey Museum (Michigan University) were conducted at Dibsi Faraj (Syria). Except for preliminary reports neither the excavations nor the materials recovered (1,676 coins were found) were subsequently published. The archive of the excavations is currently preserved at Durham University.
Roman and Byzantine coins had...
Cilicia, located on the southeastern coast of Anatolia, from the time of Cyrus the Great to the Macedonian conquest in 333 BC, was part of the Achaemenid state administrated by local dynasts (called Syennesis) and subsequently, by satraps. The satrapy played a strategic role as a mustering point and recruiting area for the Persian army. Minting activity in Cilicia began around the middle of...
Instead of focusing on the limitations of the relatively scarce and high-value early medieval currency, this talk asks instead why such coins might have been made. In early medieval England the manufacture of coin was probably driven by a wide range of functional demands, but a narrower segment of society, with the needs of the elite wasparamount. This dichotomy can be traced from the seventh...
The paper seeks to identify a female head depicted on a silver coin of Locri Epizephyrii through the analysis of its accessories. In particular, the study focuses on the sakkos, a typical attribute of female hairstyles in ancient Greece.
The research, adopting the LIN method, follows three phases: 1. Collecting evidence highlighting the distribution of sakkos in the ancient world; 2....
The Chew Valley hoard has greatly increased knowledge of the first English coinage of William I after his invasion of England in 1066 and the degree of continuity in mints and moneyers from the last coinage of Anglo-Saxon England. Single finds recorded by the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Corpus of Early Medieval Coin Finds (EMC) have provided many coins of mints or moneyers new to their coinage type...
Until the middle of the 19th century, the United States did not have the means to provide its population with a steady supply of domestic coinage. Prior to this, as the Founding Fathers attempted to define a national coinage, concerns of monetary sovereignty permeated their discussions. They understood that a national coinage was an important part of exhibiting sovereignty, but had little...
This paper explores the potential of new digital tools in the study of numismatic iconography, taking as an example the Corpus Nummorum Portal—which produces iconographic authority data and aims to create a hierarchical, multilingual Thesaurus Iconographicus Nummorum Graecorum (ThING). It focuses on a specific motif present in the Roman provincial coinage of Byzantion that reoccurs on the...
In the division of Alexander’s realm Lycia fell under the control of the Ptolemies of Egypt and issued only very few coins throughout the 3rd century BC. In 188 BC with the peace of Apamea the Romans entrusted the administration of most of the Lycian peninsula to the island of Rhodes. Opposing this step several Lycian communities formed a political league wishing to bring about Lycian...
It will be argued here that the aureus had a much higher velocity of circulation than Duncan-Jones and others gave it credit for.
The data underpinning the notion that the aureus was low velocity coin comes from Duncan-Jones’ comparison of the weight loss of aurei from his “Belgian Hoard” with the weight loss of the English sovereign. A similar rate of wear to the sovereign, which was alloyed...
This contribution reports on an important Spanish hoard with 818 imitative antoniniani of Divo Claudio type (post 270), minted in copper alloy. I will analyse its relationship to other Hispanic and European hoards. It is possible to study these antoniniani from the point of view of their styles, characteristic of different workshops in Italy, Gaul and Africa. I will also comment on the...
The chemical composition of silver coinage under the Roman Republic has been little studied. The largest recent survey is that of Holstein (2000), involving the analysis of 590 coins. The main analytical technique used was electron-probe micro-analysis (EPMA) directly on unprepared surfaces, which was unable to overcome surface effects that produced enhanced silver levels and reduced copper...
The ARCH project - Ancient Coinage as Related Cultural Heritage - uses Linked Open Data technology to establish, for the first time, an overarching platform for the study, curation, archiving and preservation of the monetary heritage of the ancient world. It is available through a portal where all the types known from the Greek world, from the 7th to the 1st century BC, are made available in a...
Deniers tournois coinages were issued in enormous quantities in medieval Mainland Greece and adjoining territories (Achaia, Athens, etc.) in the 13th and 14th centuries. The database of coin finds, within the primary and secondary (especially in Italy, Albania-Macedonia-Bulgaria, and Anatolia) areas of circulation, has augmented steadily over the last decade and we are now able to view the...
In 1792 George Washington refused to have his name and portrait placed on the proposed coinage for the fledgling United States. Why? This question has become harder to answer in the last century since placing the images of dead Presidents on coinage has become commonplace – including that of George Washington. The symbolism of the images placed on money has lost much of its significance.
The...
The conquest of Asia by Alexander left the cities of Southern Asia Minor with perceptible limitations of their freedom. Side was a mint of Alexander, but ceased producing coins in 317 BC. The monarchs of the Hellenistic period controlled, restricted or prohibited the cities’ minting activities. Antiochos III. forced several cities of Pamphylia to mint posthumous Alexander coins. Only the...
The discovery in 2016 of the Tomares Tetrarchic hoard was undoubtedly one of the most important cultural events to have taken place on the Iberian Peninsula in recent times. A team made up of members of several centers and departments of the University of Seville is currently working on the hoard in an interdisciplinary way involving a historical-numismatic study and a metallography analysis....
In this paper we present the results of recent research projects - SAMOIMAR CEIJ-C04.2; PY20_01295 WONDERCOINS-HIS; 5147126418-126418-4-21 MARIT-SIS- accomplished in the Bay of Algeciras. They focused on the collection and analysis of the coinage from ancient times found on different archaeological sites in this region.
This work is intended primarily to extract information about what the...
The conquest of Alexander the Great had a significant impact on the coin production of Carian mints, similarly as in most of the territories subdued by the Macedonian king. His successors and their officials minted in their own names, while civic mints continuing to strike their own coins. The next century was marked in Caria by a continuous struggle for power of Ptolemaic, Seleucid, and...
Electrum coinages, minted from 640 BCE well into the fifth century, are usually grouped under the amorphous term of “early electrum coinage”. There are publications of a few museum catalogues and specialized collections, but no comprehensive type catalogue exists. The only monograph that offers some sort of typology of the earliest coins was written in 1975 by Liselotte Weidauer (Probleme der...
When the Coinage Act of 1792 authorized the national monetary system of the United States, Congress stipulated that “there shall be an impression emblematic of liberty” on the obverse of each coin. Immediately, those responsible for designing the coins rendered this into a female personification of the concept. Through the course of the nineteenth century, females were making headway in their...
Drawing on newly available material and coins in museum collections this paper offers a revision on the classification of some of the Crusader coinages of Edessa and Antioch. Three areas will be considered: 1) the light folles of Baldwin II of Edessa; 2) the folles of Bohemond I at Antioch; and 3) the billon deniers of Raymond of Poitiers at Antioch. Both new specimens that have appeared in...
Non-destructive compositional analyses are extremely important in many cultural heritage fields. The use of negative muons (an electron analogue) has seen a resurgence in recent times, with developments occurring at several muon sources. After implanting negative muons into a sample muonic x-rays and gammas are released – these can then be detected to determine the composition of the sample....
The balneum of the Roman villa of Vilauba was excavated in 2014. The archaeological site is located in the northeast of the ancient Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis, now in the municipality of Camós (province of Girona, Catalonia, Spain). In the west part of the thermal complex, which was built during the second half of the 2nd century AD, a small room was identified as a latrina,...
This paper presents the preliminary results of the ERC Cog RESP project (The Roman Emperor Seen from the Provinces – GA 101002763), which investigates how Roman emperors, Augustus to Diocletian, were represented on visual media in the provinces. The research combines quantitative analysis of coin types in the RESP project database – linked to the RPC online database, with comparative analysis...
After the Macedonian conquest, the position of the governor of Cilicia was taken by Balakros, who minted coins on his own. Alexander the Great used Tarsos and Myriandros to strike imperial types. During the Hellenistic period, Cilicia was the subject of rivalry between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids. The latter used several Cilician mints for the production of coins. Besides the royal issues,...
Cataloguers sometimes prefer to stick with old, discredited, attributions rather than use new ones. One reason is that modern classifications tend to get ever more complicated; the French gros tournois series being a case in point. The gros au lis is a relatively scarce type of gros tournois which, it used to be thought, were struck in Bruges between 1298 and 1302. In the 1997 publication, The...
The United States issued the Trade Dollar between 1873 and 1885. It became increasingly more competitive in global trade during this period. Congress intended for the new coin to replace the silver dollar, which it demonetized in 1873, as American merchants’ coin of choice while trading in East Asia. Most Trade Dollars, however, circulated domestically. Historians of American money and the...
Nerva's coinage displays interest in Diana/Artemis. The goddess appears on denarii of December 96 CE, struck at Rome; the Temple of Artemis at Perge appears on cistophori of 97 CE, struck at Rome for circulation in the province of Asia. The depiction of the Pamphylian temple especially puzzles scholars, as the coins circulated in a different province. I argue that the depictions on Nerva's...
The website monedaiberica.org offers a new complete catalogue of the ancient coinages of the Iberian Peninsula and the south of France struck between the 6th and 1st centuries BC. The new project has been developed within the framework of the international ARCH project (Ancient Coinages as Related Cultural Heritage) in collaboration with the University of Oxford and the Bibliothèque nationale...
The period between the Abbasid revolution (c.120s/c.740s) and the battle of Dandanqan (431/1040) is an extremely complex one for the Islamic regions of the eastern Iranian areas (Zābulistān, Kābulistān, Sīstān, and Khurāsān). A detailed analysis of the monetary history of these regions is essential for understanding the changes these territories underwent. Preliminary results of a historical...
At the end of the 18th century, the shortage of small change in the Caribbean Islands was such that the local authorities decided on their own initiative to make coins themselves. In the absence of local mints a practical solution was adopted and spread rapidly in these small territories, whatever the empire they were attached to. The solution was to cut into smaller pieces the large silver...
This paper offers an update on the famous Beaurains hoard, found in Northern France exactly a hundred years ago. Dating to the beginning of the 4th century, the hoard is one of the most important coin finds of Late Antiquity, particularly because of spectacular gold medallions it contained. It was partly dispersedd on the very evening of its discovery and scholars have been trying to put it...
The tokens excavated in the Athenian Agora constitute a unique case of more than 300 types and approx. 1,400 specimens, of which the find spots can be plotted against the thriving political and administrative centre of Classical and Hellenistic Athens. The issue of authority – who was responsible for the issuing of tokens – has been the subject of debate between scholars. That Athenian tokens...
During the excavation for the construction of the Acropolis Museum, to the immediate southeast of the Acropolis, an important group of lead tokens was found inside a cistern containing debris from a cleanup operation of the area, after Sulla΄s invasion in 86 BC. It consists of 19 tokens, most of which bear an animal design in addition to a numerical sign, which could equally denote obols or...
Since the mid-20th century, the Mesas do Castelinho has been a point of reference in the archaeological mapping of southern Portugal. It was occupied at an early date, and its heyday coincided with the Roman presence in these territories between the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, when it controlled routes connecting the Algarve with Alentejo, taking advantage of the course of the Guadiana and the...
The pseudo-Netherlands chervonets of the Imperial Cabinet was minted in the Russian Empire between 1770 and 1867. Intended primarily for internal circulation it became the official means of payment in the Russian Empire in 1773 on the initiative of Count Z.G. Chernyshev, the Belarusian Governor-General. The overvalued rate of the unauthorized chervonets madei of cabinet gold in the Dutch...
The original understanding of the term ma'din amîr al-mu'minîn was that of a mine providing gold for caliphal dinars. But the appearance of the expression on copper coins, especially as an epithet following the mint name al-Madîna has challenged this interpretation and numerous alternatives with references to the Arabic lexicography offering other meanings were discussed over more than the...
It is usually assumed that when a new portrait model was introduced at Rome, it would be sent to the provinces for copying. Provincial coin portraits of Plotina, Matidia and Marciana, the three Trajanic women who appeared on imperial coinage, suggest otherwise. While these women each had one canonical portrait type at Rome, these appear on only about half of their types on+ provincial coins,...
While there are several syntheses discussing the uses and users of Roman gold coins in Gaul, we propose to focus here on a single case study dedicated to the civitas Aeduorum. This area has the advantage of having yielded a large corpus of more than 100 single gold finds along with at least 13 hoards, composed exclusively of gold. The corpus covers the period from the late 1st century BC until...
The National Museum of Slovenia has in its collection two silver ingots from the mid-4th century, unfortunately, without information about their context of discovery. The ingots are in the shape of a double axe-head, which is the commonest form of Late Roman silver ingots. Their weight corresponds to that of a Roman pound. Both have on them a stamped portrait of the Roman Emperor Constantius...
An aureus in the name of Plotina Avg Divi with the reverse VESTA TRAIANI PARTHICI from Marquis Giampietro Campana’s collection is re-examined here.
The coin’s authenticity, supported by various scholars including P. L. Strack and H. Mattingly, was deemed unlikely in the latest edition of RIC II2, 3, especially in connection with other issues of Plotina from the Hadrianic period. Further...
It is clear from the find spots, designs and differing styles of lead tokens in Rome and Ostia that these were objects produced by a variety of different groups within the region. This paper explores the ways in which authority was (or was not) communicated on these issues, and the significance of this for our understanding of the use context of these pieces. Tokens name authorities in full,...
Cuban 'notas complementarias' are certificates awarded to citizens in recognition of their contribution to State activity through voluntary work and payments to state organisations. This paper looks at their design and function within the Cuban economy, suggesting that their introduction and aesthetic is inspired by revolutionary scrip money and bonds issued in the 1950s.
Recent findings show that Sicilian coins are abundant in several hoards recovered on the Iberian Peninsula, dated to the 11th century. These Sicilian coins are Fāṭimid issues struck in the mint of Palermo when the island was no longer under direct Fāṭimid control but under the rule of the Kalbid dynasty. Most of these coins are half and quarter dirhams and quarter dinar fractions, even though...
We present a previously unpublished issue of "Baetican Lead Tokens". They were found at Linares, Bailén, Jaén and, in short, Andalusia (Spain). The uniface and the lead issue was "struck" by Eucleratus. It should not necessarily be related to mining activity. According to epigraphic sources, Eucleratus is a Greek cognomen documented just once in Asia, specifically in Balat (Miletus) in a...
This paper presents new research on two rare types of Roman imperial coins issued early in Hadrian’s reign, celebrating the emperor’s adoptive father.
The first part of the talk provides an update on the author’s study of the denarius type RIC II2.3, no. 2963 (obv. bust of Trajan, rev. Hadrian sacrificing at an altar), which was published in vol. 178 of NC (2018). This is the only signed...
In una nota monografia del 1937, A. Alföldi analizzò una speciale categoria di tokens tardoantichi che combinano i busti degli imperatori romani da Diocleziano a Valentiano II con iconografie religiose egiziane ed isiache, accompagnate dalla legenda ‘Vota Publica’. Mentre singoli gruppi o nuovi ritrovamenti riguardanti questo materiale sono stati discussi in contributi occasionali, l’analisi...
In 1882 a hoard of 448 gold dinars and fragments, and approximately 1200 silver dirhams and fragments was found in Bharuch, India. Prior to dispersal, these coins were studied by Codrington who published a partial catalogue. Most of these coins were from the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria, and many were subsequently incorporated into the foundational work of Mamluk numismatics, Paul...
A small group of some twenty identical bronze coins with a “sacrificial bull” reverse come from a Hellenistic wreck of the early 3rd century B.C. found off La Tour Fondue at the tip of the Giens peninsula, Var, France. Despite their unmistakable Massaliot appearance and excellent style, these early pieces differ in a number of ways from the usual series. By considering also other coins of this...
The Gran Carro settlement is known for the exceptional conservation of the remains on the bottom of Lake Bolsena. It has been the subject of research since 1959, but only recently has it been possible to prove that it includes three sectors: the currently submerged area, which contains the remains of pile-dwellings (First Iron Age, late 10th-9th century BC); the so-called Aiola, a wide...
Regardless of the exact dating of the battle fought at Kalkriese, this findspot is our best insight into Roman army pay of the early Imperial period. As there are no underlying layers of prior monetary usage in the region, and the coin supply came to a sudden halt after the Roman troops left, the insight gained into the legionaries’ purses is unique. Additionally, the composition of the coin...
The ancient polis of Croton, a colony founded by Achaeans in Bruttium, exerted influence over a vast area in southern Italy from the end of the 6th to about the middle of the 5th century BC. Towards the end of the 5th century BC, the power structures in the region reorganized and the poleis of Taranto, Thurium and Heraclea gained influence. At the same time, with the strengthening of Dionysius...
The reign of Cleopatra VII, essentially told from the point of view of the victor, has certainly been the subject of a myriad studies but has not been subjected to a complete numismatic analysis. The coins remain, however, the most tangible sources, given the scarcity of documentary data and the biased nature of literary sources. Thirteen cities minted coins for Cleopatra and/or in her effigy;...
As patron of the arts, Queen Christina was actively engaged in the design and production of her medals. She invited medal artists from abroad to work for her at the Swedish court and sought the development of medal art. Most of all, she launched a unique iconographic style. In contrast to her predecessors and successors, Queen Christina employed an antique-inspired imagery unusual for that...
Gold coinage in the Amber Road corridor, which is the area between southern Silesia and the Austrian Danube valley, is represented by the Athena Alkidemos type from the half of 3rd to the half of 2nd century BC. The vigorous development of lowland settlement centres marked by a high level of commodity production and trade indicates an above‐standard position of this region within Central...
The hyperpyra of John III Vatatzès of Nicaea were imitated in such quantity that the Florentine merchant Francesco Pegolotti noted them as "latin" gold hyperpyra. In 2000 Ernest Oberländer-Tȃrnoveanu published guidelines on how to recognize the imitations, based on a Romanian hoard. This paper presents additional guidance for identifying "latin" imitations and distinguishing them from modern...
A synthesis of results and methods is presented of five quantitative studies of Ptolemaic bronze coins produced at many mints over most of the duration of the empire. The studies are of weights of over 10,000 coins, hundreds of catalogued types, in diverse public collections and reference works as well as some records from trade. A method evolved for these studies may be applied to other...
The study of Celtic coin production in the Amber Road corridor is one of the most important tasks addressed by archaeology and numismatics. At least six La Tène C central sites are known nowadays in the Danube zone of Lower Austria which yielded thousands upon thousands of such coins. Unfortunately, only a small fraction has been published so far. The settlement of Haselbach has been...
This paper presents the results of my PhD research which examines the numismatic evidence from the northern frontier of Roman Britain. This analysis is the result of the creation of a database containing detailed records for c.38,000 Roman coins found in northern England and southern Scotland. Previous studies have been largely restricted to discussions of coins from the military communities...
This talk will deal with the representation of Queen Anne on the medals of the Royal Mint in London during her reign, from 1702 to 1714.
We propose to address the link between coins and the first medal of the reign, and the evolution of her bust during her reign.
Finally, we propose to address the evolution of production of medals during her reign, as a part of the royal representation as...
Thurium is one of the most important Greek colonies in Magna Graecia, both because of its connections to other cities and innovative coinage. However, the current arrangement and knowledge of Thurian coins has not yet reached a level that is comparable to other cities of similar importance. This oversight has repercussions for our understanding of the politics and economy of Magna...
The aim of this paper is to present for the first time a new Byzantine coin hoard which was discovered in Bayindir. The hoard consists of 113 billon trachea. The paper demonstrates the significance of the hoard with reference to its overstrikes, and to the numerical predominance of Theodore I Lascaris’ Second Coinage, which is abundant in Turkish hoards and almost absent from Greek deposits....
The presence of Ptolemy III bronze coins in the Peloponnese during the 3rd-1st century BCE is well-known. These coins were minted by the Egyptian king and financed Cleomenes III, king of Sparta. Moving from the evidence of the unpublished hoard found in 1936 at Kato Kleitoria, near Tripolis, Arcadia (IGCH 184), this paper will analyze this peculiar phenomenon, its occurrence in different...
Images play a major role in the media strategies of politicians, who aim to increase their prestige and authority. That is of course the case nowadays and it was already so in the days of Empress Maria Theresa. By then, medals had become suitable tools of propaganda and historiography. Nowadays, they are unique sources on the visual culture and royal image-making. During Maria Theresa’s...
The systematic research on the coin finds from the Hungarian Barbaricum, i.e. the region to the east of the Danube, was initiated with the adoption of the AFE-RGK database. The metal detector finds and major excavations carried out over the last decades have considerably increased the number of coin finds in Hungary. The exciting new material makes it possible to revise the previously...
In the summer of 2017 a volunteer archaeologist investigating a field in Brandenburg unearthed a special find. This discovery was followed by a systematic investigation by archaeologists from the Brandenburg State Heritage Management and Archaeological State Museum (BLDAM) which continued until 2018 recovering a total of 41 “plain rainbow cup coins” (glatte Regenbogenschüsselchen). This is the...
The identification of the polis of Medma in the current Rosarno area was made in the 20th century, when the control activity over archaeological finds started to be particularly intense. Finds of ancient coins date back to the 19th century and have contributed to the most important numismatic collections in Southern Italy and across Europe as well. Recent studies identified the functions of...
The analysis of the written sources and finds will be used to propose a preliminary overview of the circulation of the coinage of Lucca north of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines. Traditionally the territory of Emilia-Romagna has been regarded as an area of overlap of two different "monetary areas" which emerged in the eleventh century when mints began to strike coins with different types....
The aim of this work is to study the coin circulation of the island of Lipari off the coast of Sicily (Italy). Taking into consideration the numismatic evidence from archaeological excavation campaigns on the site of interest, we focus on the period spanning the Greek and the Roman age.
Although the mint activity of Lipari in the Greek period has been widely examined by many researchers, this...
The paper deals with Late Roman gold coinage (hoards and isolated finds) dated between 275 and 498 AD found in the Barbaricum, in the region between the Tisa, Mureș, Danube rivers and the Timiș-Cerna corridor. This historic and geographic region, known as Banat, nowadays lies in south-western Romania and north-eastern Serbia. The region has yielded 110 of so Roman gold coins: 80 of so coins...
The circulation of Ptolemaic coins in Asia Minor, particularly in southwestern Asia Minor, where the political hegemony was mainly established, has never been studied in detail. In addition to the published material, new numismatic data, both from archeological excavations and museum collections which make such a study possible, offer new evidence for making new attributions as well as for...
As a Celtic counterpart of the Greek obol, small silver coins occur in southern Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria. The main occurrence in phase La Tène D1 (150-75 BC) correlates with the emergence of oppidum settlements. So far research has focused on the publication of single and hoard finds, and also coins from settlements in order to broaden the material base. Now for the first time...
The find in Mladá Boleslav-Podlázky from 2011 contains a combination of denarii, weights and jewellery which is unique for Bohemia. At least 15 Bohemian denarii from the end of the reign of Duke Boleslav II (972–999) date the deposit to the year 999. The new coin evidence helped to refine the attribution of a previously anonymous type of denarius to Cacz, the new Vyšehrad Mintmaster. This is...
This paper will discuss the origins, development and future plans for the Hellenistic Royal Coinages digital resource (numismatics.org/hrc) and its component parts, including PELLA, Seleucid Coins Online, Ptolemaic Coins Online, Antigonid Coins Online, and CoinHoards.org.
Unlike coins, medals were not bound by any restrictions of size or weight. Cast or struck, they were usually larger, thicker and more three-dimensional than the flat coins, sometimes with the obverse and/or reverse shaped in high relief. This phenomenon is especially noticeable in the facing and three-quarter facing portraits frequently seen on medals. However, the compositional scheme of...
Gold coins minted by Pyrrhus king of Epirus during the final stage of his campaign in Sicily have on the reverse the image of Nike bearing a trophy and holding an oak wreath. The trophy consists of a corselet cuirass and a thyreos-type shield with a central reinforcing ridge. Recent analysis has linked this iconography to the memory of Pyrrhus’ victory at Heraclea Lucaniae. The iconography...
In 2010 H. Horsnæs published the first of two volumes of Crossing Boundaries, in which she moved beyond lists of coin finds by approaching the material from an archaeological viewpoint as well as presenting a fully updated publication of the Roman coinage found in Denmark. In this project, I have attempted to update the material further by focusing primarily on the Roman denarius hoards...
This paper presents the results of work on two recent finds of British Iron Age coin hoards. A hoard from the New Forest consists of two discrete silver deposits with evidence for deliberate damage and destruction of coinage. It contains a mixture of South Western and Southern coinage, including a number of new types.
The second, the Baddow, Essex hoard, is the largest British gold hoard...
Ancient Alaisa/Halaesa has seen many excavations in recent years. Different sectors of the site have been studied - the sanctuary of Apollo by the joint archeological mission of the Universities of Messina and Oxford; the city walls by the University of Palermo; the agora and the theatre by the Université de Picardie Jules Verne of Amiens. As a result, the site yielded a significant number of...
Until the 1970s, linking archaeological data to historical events documented in the literary sources was a common approach in archaeological studies. Despite its limitations this method is still frequently used. There are many interpretations of the consequences of the migrations of the Cimbri and Teutones, which according to some texts swept Europe at the end of the 2nd century BC. One of...
Over the course of the American Numismatic Society's Hellenistic Royal Coinages project, nearly 3,000 monogram identifiers were created, each with an open access Screen Vector Graphic image that can be reused on the web and in print. These monogram identifiers have been integrated into the online type corpora of PELLA (the coinages struck in the name of Alexander the Great and Philip...
The imperial gold medallions of the Late Roman Empire are manifestations of power and prestige, and no doubt were used as visible emblems of status in a gift exchange from the emperor both to his entourage and to foreign peers. The recently found gold hoard from Vindelev, Denmark, and particularly the four large Roman gold medallions from 4th century AD that were part of this deposit, add to...
The paper aims to present the figure of the titular Queen of Great Britain Maria Klementyna Sobieska-Stuart based on medals which commemorate the most important moments in her life. The medals were minted by the top-class medalist Otto Hamerani at the request of Popes Clement XI and Benedict XIV. The medals commemorate the princess's escape from captivity in Ambras Castle, her triumphal...
There is a small group of Sancta Colonia imitations struck on square flans. They are heavy and their style is barbarized and it is supposed that they are of Nordic origin. However, the best known group of German imitations struck on square flans are Duisburg imitations, probably produced somewhere in southern Scandinavia. Furthermore, there are some Goslar and other imitations which I believe...
Si presenta la composizione del cospicuo ripostiglio di 562 monete d’argento rinvenuto nel 1938 in una cassettina di legno nel corso delle indagini di Amedeo Maiuri nel Cardo IV di Ercolano e custodito nel Medagliere del Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (inv. 1947). Il ripostiglio, inedito, consente di discutere il quadro di affermazione del denario d’argento nell’ultima fase di vita...
This paper examines the corpus of gold coins and coin-like objects from the North Sea area in a broadly construed Merovingian period, c.450–c.760. While Grierson’s position on a non-economic use of gold in the early middle ages has generally carried the day, there have been others, such as Michael Metcalf and Mark Blackburn, who have voiced varying degrees of dissent. Based on the quantity and...
Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek coins are the best, and in many cases only, primary source for our understanding of these enigmatic Hellenistic kingdoms. Since the publication of Osmund Bopearachchi’s seminal 'Monnaies gréco-bactriennes et indo-grecques' in 1991 many new coins have appeared. This paper will present a new typology of these coinages, created as part of the OXUS-INDUS project, and...
Le titre inclitus n'était pas utilisé dans toute l'Europe depuis le temps des Visigoths. C'est Boleslas le Vaillant (Bolesław Chrobry), duc de Pologne (992-1025), qui plaça l'inscription: BOLIZLAS DVX INCLITVS sur l'un type de ses deniers. Il y en a 3 variantes qui imitent les modèles saxons du 10/11e s. (A et B) ainsi que le modèle anglosaxon – d'Ethelred II (C). Tous les deniers du type (A,...
In 415 BC, during the second Athenian expedition against Sicily, when almost all the inhabitants of the island had united against the Athenians alongside the Syracusans (Thuc. VII 33 2), Kamarina minted copious series of bronze coins representing both the Athenian owl attacking the Sicilian lizard, and the combat of this small reptile against the great raptor. These coins, found today in all...
The 18th century was the time when the whole Europe widely introduced the award or prize medals not only as a gift or token of gratitude to commemorate the merits of an individual or an institution, which was an established practice, but also a specific type of a universal medal. Like many other rulers of the Enlightenment, king Stanislaus II Augustus introduced this type of medal (e.g....
Archaeological study at the site of the hoards finds a whole series of perspectives. In this regard, this method of field research is actively used by European archaeologists, but the situation in Belarus is absolutely different. Trying to solve the problem, the National Historical Museum of the Republic of Belarus conducted several expeditions to the places where the hoards from museum...
There is a general consensus on the influx of solidi in the second half of the 5th c. – which were brought to Scandinavia via Pomerania (the Lower Vistula basin). Another claim is that at the beginning of the 6th c. this influx continued via, for example, Western Pomerania. However, this theory is contradicted when we take a closer look at the nature of these finds. In my paper, I will focus...
Part one of this paper will discuss the nature of typologies used to describe Royal Coinages, both in print and online. In part two it will then outline the work that has taken place as part of the ARCH project, to plug the gaps in the typologies of royal coinages that have not been covered by the Hellenistic Royal Coinages project. In part three it will explain why ARCH has taken the approach...
Male and female figures depicted standing in front of an altar and making a sacrifice are one of the main features in the coinage of Greek Sicily. Typically the female figures are shown holding a phiale, but on the first litrae minted at Entella (440-430 BC) the female figure appears holding a temple key in her other hand.
These litrae issued by Entella are the only ancient Greek coins with...
The Gabinet Numismàtic de Cataluña has in its collection a significant representation of issues from the 6th to the 10th centuries which need to be brought up to date in terms of classification and identification. In addition, research will be carried out into the provenance of the coins and their entry into the CNG. The composition of the collection will also be compared with that of other...
With over 43,000 objects, the coins and medals of the Landesmuseum Hannover tell the story of Lower Saxony and Hanover from the Middle Ages to modern times. The historical focus of the collection is on coins related to the personal union of Great Britain and Hanover, 1714 to 1837. During this period, the kings of Hanover ruled Great Britain, and the power of the House of the Welf dating back...
On my poster I will present the first results from my PhD project concerned with the coinage in Khuzistan, from Alexander the Great to the End of the Sasanians (c. 325 BC – AD 642). Thus, the research project covers the periods of Seleucid, Arsacid and Sasanian dominance in the territory of Khuzistan in the present-day Iran, as well as the aspirations for independence under local rulers (e.g....
Several coin series minted in northern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia on the orders of several princes belonging to the Zangid (521-619/1127-1222) and Artuqid (495-811/1104-1408) dynasties have on them figurative representations imitating ancient coins. The article explores the significance of these images for the users of these coins in the Middle Ages. Geopolitics and the crusades, the...
A hoard of Roman coins recovered in 2005 outside the rural settlement Moshny (Cherkassy region, Central Ukraine) includes issues Constantius II to sons of Theodosius I, basically AD 383-388, of the same nominal value (AE2), mainly copper. Finds of hoards of Late Roman coins on the territory of the East European forest-steppe are very rare. Their main area of concentration within the range of...
In 2020, near Myrhorod (Poltava oblast, Ukraine), a hoard was accidentally found which included 12 Roman sestertii from the time of Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and Commodus, as well as ornaments made in the champlevé enamel technique (two bracelets, a brooch, and a chain), produced in the second half of 2nd - early 3rd centuries. This hoard should probably be associated with the...
The subject of the paper will be silver coins of Ballaeus, found during the excavations in Risan. Some of them turned out to be subaerates. The paper will focus on the nature of this coinage, on other previously known Illyrian silver coins, and attempt to answer this question: who cheated whom? Ballaeus - his subjects, or the subjects - their king?
SubID 52277009729
The National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is opening an exhibition called Really BIG Money that was written and designed with elementary-aged visitors in mind. To represent money that is “big” in quantity, rather than size or denomination, it will feature approximately 170 coins from a Roman hoard arranged in the shape of one very large Roman...
The poster reports on an early medieval hoard from an unknown location now in the collection of the Ossolinski National Institute in Wrocław. Surviving at present only as a fragment of the original deposit this early medieval hacksilver hoard was buried in the first half of the 11th century. It includes dirhams, German coins (11) and fifteen fragments of silver ornaments. The German coins are...
The radiologist George Severeanu was a passionate collector of antiquities (1879-1939). His collection of archaeological objects includes ancient Greek pottery, clay statuettes, bronze and marble objects, Roman glassware, ancient gems and cameos. George Severeanu’s numismatic collection, one of the most valuable in Romania, consists of approximately 9,000 objects from different historical...
The French archaeologist and numismatist Adrien Blanchet (1866-1957) was the first to start developing several important corpora. In the process of collecting information and making syntheses for systematic publication he made quite a few monetary discoveries, laying the foundations for what would later become the Corpus des trésors monétaires antiques de la France (TAF).
Recent access to a...
The John Max Wulfing Collection of Ancient Coins and Related Objects of the Washington University in St. Louis, with ca. 16,000 objects, ranks as one of the largest university collection in the United States. The coins were donated by John Max Wulfing, a St. Louisian businessman, a keen collector of Roman coinage.
A notable group in the collection are 633 coins of the Byzantine Empire,...
Many coin hoards entered the Vatican Medagliere over the centuries and as was common in the past, all coins belonging to a hoard would be separated and placed in different destination sectors. The project currently underway at the Vatican Medagliere aims to reconstruct these hoards - some of them have particularly interesting stories - through the study of archival documents and matching the...
Copper-alloy stycas, minted in 9th-century Northumbria, are the most common early medieval English coins, but are in need of radical reappraisal. Until recently it was assumed that styca production stopped in 867 due to Viking attacks and civil war, but new research suggests that use and even production continued under Viking control. Comparison of these imitations with official Northumbrian...
Covering the appearance of the first coins imported to Britain in the early second century BC, through to the development of insular trimetallic coinage, the Roman invasion of Claudius in AD 43 and beyond, this poster will present aspects of new research into the Iron Age to Roman transition in Britain from the perspective of coin hoards.
British ‘Celtic’ coinage has regional variation but...
Silver coins of Grand Prince Vladimir Olgerdovich (1362–1394) were minted on disks cut from a metal sheet. With this method there were no silver waste and a fairly high weight standard was ensured. Coin blanks were sub-circular or oval, between 8 and 15 mm in diameter, and 0.1 and 0.67 g in weight. Since there is no written evidence to confirm the operation of a mint in Kyiv the provenance of...
The author presents fourteen coin hoards, divided into four groups. The hoards from the villages of Arnautito, Gita, Byalizvor, Byalo pole belong to the second group, dated to 315-317 AD. The hoard from Rakitnitza village containing coins minted until 324-326 AD, belongs to the third group. Two types of coin hoards are placed in the fourth group. The first subgroup includes the hoard from the...
Corpus Nummorum is a joint project of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Münzkabinett Berlin, and the Big Data Lab of the University of Frankfurt. It indexes ancient Greek coins from various landscapes across collections and develops typologies. The coins and types are published on a multilingual website using numismatic authority data and FAIR principles.
As part...
The study of counterfeiting in Ukraine and Poland is an area of numismatics much neglected until recently. The history of counterfeiting in the part of the Ukrainian lands integrated during the interwar period into the Second Polish Republic still remains a blank spot. A surge in the production of counterfeit Polish coins in the Lviv region during the interwar period is indicated by finds of...
The forgery and counterfeiting of ancient coins has recently witnessed an alarming increase. This makes authentication of these coins and detection of fakes of a paramount importance. In this poster we propose a systematic step-by-step scientific testing methodology museums can use to confirm the authenticity of coins in their collections, and coins offered to them from different sources. The...
We try to summarize for the first time the monetary occurrences of this type, sometimes poorly described due to heavy wear of the coins and imprecision of the descriptions.
Also addressed in our analysis is the diachronic and diatopic distribution of the type, made in line with the methodology of Lexicon Iconographicum Numismaticae, in an attempt to contextualise it and give...
This poster presents the interdisciplinary research project DigiNUMA (University of Helsinki and Aalto University, Finland), which develops a new model for harmonising national and international archaeological datasets for Digital Humanities analysis and public dissemination through Linked Open Data (LOD). DigiNUMA answers challenges and opportunities created by the need for digital solutions...
Qualitatively new information was obtained from a series of analyses of the elemental composition of alloys of coin samples, technological residues and casting waste.
However, the organization of a full-fledged, in accordance with modern methods of archaeological research of objects, remains among the first where it is assumed the presence of centers for the production of casting copies. For...
Producing small coins was often a costly affair in the later Middle Ages. The process is labour intensive, and therewith relatively expensive. As of the late fourteenth century their production had become so unattractive for the mint master that the ducal administration needed to take measures to ensure a minimum supply of petty coins. These measures were probably insufficient, which opened a...
Between 2018 and 2019, an archaeological excavation at the basilica of San Vittore al Corpo in Milan uncovered a mass grave with more than thirty corpses. During the excavation of one of the skeletons, a florin of Philip I of Habsburg issued in Antwerp (1500-1506) and thirteen silver coins came to light. The latter are currently impossible to identify (their restoration is planned in the...
Within the framework of a PhD research project which is part of the Pondera Online collaborative project, I analyse the weights from several city-states in Western Asia Minor within three geographical areas: Propontis, Troas and Aeolis. For the first time this material will be studied from a global perspective. The poster presents the corpora of to date c. 600 weights and develops four...
The discovery of a hoard of thirteen Roman coins (2nd-century CE sestertii) in the Krucze Mountains leads us to revise the image of the Sudetes as an area almost completely devoid of human settlement in the Roman period. The hoard is absolutely unique in the context of the Central European Barbaricum. The find from Święta Góra has a clearly symbolic character, connected with the spiritual...
Inaugurated on 20 May 2021 the ikmk.net is a new web portal of public numismatic collections.
Public coin collections, which are using the documentation software of the Münzkabinett Berlin (ikmk.smb.museum), are representing the ikmk family (currently 30 partner institutions). These include the Berlin and Vienna cabinets, the Herzog-Anton-Ulrich-Museum, the Münzkabinett Winterthur, and...
One of the most important technologies used in the documentation and examination of cultural heritage is Reflectance Transformation Imaging technique (RTI). Because of its many advantages RTI has been widely used in processes of digitization, interpretation, and virtual presentation of ancient coins. This research will focus on the use of the RTI technique in the study, examination, and...
Can Linked Open Data capture the changes in value through changes in the weight of a Roman denomination, and identify them with historically documented events? With Linked Open Data, large amounts of information can be generated without affecting the quality of the data. Consequently, can Linked Open Data and the quantitative approach be used to make scientific statements? A SPARQL query is...
The Tomares Hoard, found in 2016 at the Olivar del Zaudín Park (Tomares, Sevilla), is one of the largest Roman monetary hoards ever found. Composed exclusively of nummi from the 16 active mints of the Tetrarchy period, specifically between c. 294 and 312 this hoard is a great source of information about this turbulent part of the Late Roman Period, offering insight into the situation in the...
The large number of requests from researchers and collectors, and new ways to manage digital content offered by the most important international and Italian cultural institutes highlights the need to upload Milan Coin Cabinet collections, now known mainly from printed publications.
The aim is to make it easier to study the collections and to create a system to find pictures and information to...
In 2017 the author described four modern counterfeits of communal coins of Asti (1141-1336), two of which are now found in the Fitzwiliam Museum in Cambridge. Their stylistic and epigraphic details suggested they could be the work of the infamous forger Luigi Cigoi. Two years later we identified a gros tournois with unique characteristics. An in-depth analysis and comparison of surface details...
Timacum Minus continued as an administrative center of the Territoria metallorum mining area from the middle of the 2nd century until its destruction around the middle of the 5th century. Ever since its foundation at the end of the 1st century an urban settlement had developed around the military fort.
The numismatic finds from Timacum Minus fall into two categories: coins from a...
This poster will introduce my current PhD research on 17th century trade tokens. These privately issued, centrally produced, copper alloy ‘trade’ tokens are a mass phenomenon responding to particular economic and political circumstances between 1648 to 1672 in England, Wales and Ireland but have many international parallels. They will be considered in the light of international and...
Our objective is to discuss early Mongol monetary issues in the Caucasus. We focused on the coins bearing the mint name “Qarabāgh” and issued temp. Ögedei and Töregene. The anonymous bow type bearing this mint name has already been published. However, we discovered a specimen restruck from the silver drama (Georgian for dirham) of Queen Rusudan of Georgia (1223-1245) (2.37 g; reportedly,...
The territory of Belarus is one of the peripheral zones of the distribution of cast barbarian copies of Roman Imperial denarii. Most Belarusian finds of these coins should be identified with the Wielbark culture whose sites are known in the south-west of Belarus. Then again, the population of the Wielbark culture received cast coins from the related Chernyakhiv culture.
The study of the...
During the reign of Seleucus IV (187-175 BCE) bronze coins, depicting prow of galley, were minted in Antioch on the Orontes. This appears to be a unique and remarkable development. Antioch was a river city without naval traditions, with nearby Seleucia Pieria and Laodicea functioning as its port-cities. The ancient sources do not mention Seleucus undertaking any naval activity. On the...
This study presents several forgeries which – unless identified – disrupt early 4th c. Roman numismatics. Late Roman coin forgeries are nothing new and many public collections include forgeries, often unknowingly. In addition, forgeries in increasing numbers have been entering the commercial market. Undetected old and new forgeries pose the same problem: they disturb research by introducing...
Epigraphy is one of the most neglected aspects of numismatics. Starting from a complete, albeit brief, examination of studies on coin legends undertaken so far, this work aims to catalogue and analyze inscriptions related to the issues of Magna Graecia and Sicily. The island of Sicily, controlled by different powers over the centuries first, Carthaginians, and next Greeks and Romans, has a...
The report discusses rare coins with the inscription which translates as “metropolis of Artaxians”, attributed to the mint operating in Artaxata (Artashat), the capital of Great Armenia. To date, there are eight alternative dates proposed for the time of issue of these coins. Of these the hypothesis of R. Vardanyan who attributes this coinage to 1/2 and 3/4 AD is the most reasoned. However,...
Launched in 2020 the professional Instagram account “numismatisticious” is a visual art project of Greek numismatics in the digital age. The spectrum represented ranges from ancient Greek coins to modern drachmas, including banknotes. Via the social media platform of the Instagram the magnificent imagery of Greek coins and banknotes is transported into a new age. The aim of the...
The metrological systems and weights have been important marks of identity of cultural groups throughout history, and in their patterns closely linked to the minting of coins. However, the analysis of this class of objects has been rare and undervalued, possibly because of their limited material and formal attractiveness.
We present here objects associated with the act of weighing from the...
The poster will present the author’s dissertation project “Picturing Emperor Ferdinand I on Medals in the First Half of the 19th Century. The medal production between 1835 and 1848 in an art-historical and historical context” implemented between 2016 and 2020 at the Department of Art History at the University of Vienna (Austria). The dissertation focuses on medals during the reign of the...
The analyzed coins belong to one of the most exciting categories of numismatic finds on the territory of Eastern Europe – they are copies of the Roman Empire denarii. In the Barbarian Fakers, Manufacturing and use of counterfeit Roman Imperial denarii in East-Central Europe in antiquity project, funded by the Poland National Centre of Science (2018/31/B/HS3/00137) and implemented at the...
A large hoard of radiates discovered in 2019 near Varzi (PV – Northern Italy) consists of more than 1,300 coins which date from Gallienus to Aurelian (based on a preliminary analysis). The specimens are in a very poor condition, probably due to the lack of a ceramic vessel to preserve them from a direct contact with the ground. This is confirmed by the absence of any ceramic fragments on the...
A study of the gros tournois of the Asti mint (13th-14th century) launched in 2015 has explored so far fifteen international museums and numerous private collections. Hundreds of public auction catalogues were also consulted. Ultimately seventy-three gros tournois were identified, confirming the rarity of this coin. The identity and sequence of dies have been studied using Arslan's methods,...
In cooperation with the State Coin Cabinet of the Moritzburg Art Museum in Halle (Saale) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation, the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology in Saxony-Anhalt has embarked on a digital recording and indexing of ca. 18,500 coin finds, medieval to modern age. The digitization and publication of coin finds from Saxony-Anhalt...
The focus of research are coin types issued by two local mints in the province of Thrace ‒ Pautalia and Serdica. Located in the western part of this Roman province, the two cities struck prolific coinage, starting in the second half of the 2nd century until the early 3rd century (with short interruptions within this period). The mint of Serdica went on to strike a restricted volume of coins...
Reading old texts can be very difficult, and when it comes to Arab-Sasanian coins, we encounter the Pahlavi script and the Middle Persian language. The Persian language survived, but the Pahlavi script did not. On the early Arab-Sasanian coins we can see that the Arabic script and language are slowly taking over, culminating in the coin reform of Abd al-Malik in 78-79H. The mint names are the...
Opened in 1713, the Gotha Coin Cabinet at Friedenstein Castle was one of the largest and most important coin collections in Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Marked by a varied history until recently the numismatic collection felt the consequences of the Second World War. Although the coins removed to the USSR in 1945 were returned already in 1958, over 16,000 of the most important...
While the study of terrestrial coin assemblages has a long-standing history within the discipline of numismatics, coin assemblages occurring on shipwreck sites represent a resource that has yet to receive comparable examination. Although the term “hoard” is inclusive of coin assemblages found on shipwreck sites, their limited presence within prominent coin hoard databases is reflective of the...
In 1931 Maggiora-Vergano attributed to Guglielmo IX Paleologo, Marquis of Monferrato and governor of Asti, a terlina similar to the terline coined in Asti by Louis XII. Nothing more was known about this coin for ninety years, so the authors of the Medieval European Coinage expressed doubts about its existence. A census of Asti coins taken by his author in Italian and international museums led...
This paper is a summary of my master thesis in which I collected all the coins from the poleis of Corinth and Maroneia from the Archaic through to the Hellenistic periods. These cities chose the (winged) horse as a motif, so I compared the various representations with other poleis in the Mediterranean. The overall concept was to study the movement of the horse. Next to the usual canon of the...
At first the coat of arms of Volhynia on coins is in the form of a white cross on a red shield, as in 14th-century Lutsk under Prince Dmitry Gediminovych. Two centuries later, the coat of arms appears on silver półkopek and gold ducat coins of Sigismundus II Augustus, King of Poland. The date on the obverse is 1564, over the value of XXX (30 grosz). The shield with the cross of Volhynia is...
This paper presents an overview of our research into the pre-Roman history and coinage of Erythrai in Ionia, which we are conducting within the framework of a PhD thesis undertaken at the Istanbul University. The typological arrangement of the numismatic material is being recorded directly on Historia Numorum Online (HNO) and marks the start of the first Ionian mint of this collaborative...
The coin Medagliere cabinet of the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan opened its doors to scholars on 3rd November 2015. Its collection includes more than 50,000 coins and medals. The opening marked the start of the work on cataloguing all the coins and medals of the Cabinet. The poster presents the core of the corpus of Roman Provincial coins of Nicopolis ad Istrum, a collection made...
The Florentine gold florin, first minted in 1252, is widely recognized as one of the most famous coins of the Medieval West. A new monograph to be published by the Italian Ministry of Culture in the Bollettino di Numismatica sheds new light on this coinage, presenting the results of a recent PhD research project carried out at the Universities of Granada and Ca’ Foscari of Venice in...
While still a hereditary prince of Hesse-Kassel, Wilhelm I (1743-1821) was an enthusiastic collector of coins and medals. He did not give up this passion as a reigning Elector. His collection was built up in Hanau. Taking office, Wilhelm I took the coins and medals with him to Kassel. When the Electorate of Hesse-Kassel was annexed by Prussia in 1866 the collection became public museum...
A late Roman coin die discovered during an excavation in the outskirts of the castrum of Basilia / Basel (CH) in 1999 was identified only in 2021. It turned out to be a heavily corroded iron lower die used to strike late Constantinian imitations of the FEL TEMP REPARATIO / falling horseman type.
In addition to a detailed presentation of the coin die and its classification in the context of...
In 2015, a Roman coin hoard was unearthed in Ueken, in a remote field close to the Rhine limes. It consists of 4,084 coins dating from Gallienus to the Diarchy (tpq end 293), being thus one of the most significant Roman hoards known to date in Switzerland, and the largest from the late 3rd century AD. As such, it is a first-rate European source for the period between the monetary reforms of...
During the Hellenistic period, the tradition of Carian coinages with three-quarter facing heads dated back already at least a century, to the final years of the 5th century and the Rhodian three-quarter facing Helios coins. On the other hand, during the 4th century the Hecatomnids also issued coins with a three-quarter facing Apollo. Later still, in the 3rd century, a new wave of three-quarter...
The so-called ‘Zeichen der falschen Gulden’, prints from the late 15th century, warn of forgeries of gold coins, that are supposedly in circulation. Ten different printers located in the southern German region produced those prints, each describing and most of them also depicting the same five gulden.
Moreover, they report on the responsible forgers, who allegedly already had been caught and...
Recent years have seen an increase of information about new finds of unofficial copies of Roman imperial denarii made by casting and a progress in research. While earlier workshops for the production of such coins were known in the Roman provinces, currently there is more evidence for the existence of such workshops in the Barbaricum. At the moment, the greatest concentration of the production...
The hoard of Le Câtillon II found in 2012 in Jersey contains almost 70,000 Celtic coins. It took enormous manpower and time (including 25 volunteers) taking apart the hoard, generating pictures and also to do a first identification of each single coin. Currently, die studies are still ongoing and it would probably take another several decades to finish them based on the eyes of an expert...
On March 27th, 2020 a special event moved the whole of humanity regardless of religious beliefs: the Pope of the Catholic Church, alone in a completely empty Piazza san Pietro, and in the darkness of a rainy evening, raised a prayer to the God of all people to free us from the terrible pandemic that is overwhelming our lives. It is not the first time that Peter's successors have performed such...
Bronze coins were barely mentioned in Holloway's monograph (1969) on the series issued in the name of Hieronymus of Syracuse, who reigned for 13 months (215-214 BC) due to the belief that the difficulty of taking good quality images and wear make it impossible to reconstruct the die-sequence. HD photography and new materials now at hand have removed this challenge. Starting with the large...
The first Słuszków Hoard was found in 1935. Dated to the first years of the 12th century, it contained 13,061 coins, mainly late cross pennies, 7 silver flans and 33 silver ornaments. For many years, numerous attempts were made to establish the exact findspot, but without success. In 2020, during a new archaeological survey a second hoard was unexpectedly discovered in Słuszków, similar in...
Made either by striking or casting, counterfeit Roman Imperial denarii have been attested on the territory of western Moldavia (Romania). Denarii subaerati, produced by striking, are the most numerous, with approximately the same number noted in hoards (more than 30 pcs.), and among single finds (more than 20 pcs.). Finds of cast denarii are limited at present to specimens found in a single...
Contemporary medals provide an artistic commentary on perspectives on history and culture. Topics range from global phenomena to subjective emotions. As such, contemporary medallic art has great potential as a source for several disciplines. Next to numismatic expertise the study of medals requires knowledge of social, political, and cultural spheres as well as historical events.
From the...
Polish coinage of the late 12th century remains an unsolved mystery in many ways. Written sources and archaeological evidence for this period were scarce until the discovery in October 1987 in Głogów of one of the largest hoards in Poland and Europe. The hoard comprises nearly 23,000 small silver deniers and fragments. The earliest coins are issues of German margraves and bishops from the...
The electrum stater of Cyzicus was the most significant currency in the Propontis and the Black Sea region from the mid-5th c. BC to the reign of Alexander III, as revealed by literary sources, epigraphic evidence, hoards and occasional finds. These coins were minted in large numbers and several types referring not only to Cyzicus. In a recently published article, I proposed to explain this...
The fine 3D digitalisation (to 1/10 of a micron) of coins leads to a wide variety of uses both in terms of research and the enhancement of collections. Our work aimed first of all to provide a dataset to identify dies by "deep learning". The 3D process erases colours and shading, and brings out details that have almost been erased. Then, from several pieces, a more complete picture of the dies...
The hoard, still unpublished, was found in 2011 in the waters off Cala Tramontana, along the eastern coast of the island of Pantelleria. It consists of over 3000 Punic bronze coins belonging to the IA series in the Forteleoni classification (1961) with a female head / equine protome (300-264 BC). This contribution will present some reflections on the structure of this assemblage and some...
To cluster thousands of coins, automatic methods are necessary. Public datasets for coin die clustering evaluation are too rare, despite their importance for the development of new methods using Artificial Intelligence. Therefore, with our dataset of 2070 3D scans of coins, we create two benchmarks, one for point cloud registration, essential for coin die recognition, and a benchmark of coin...
In recent decades interest in finds of irregularly issued Roman coins in the Central and Eastern European Barbaricum has increased significantly. In the area of the Przeworsk culture, the starting point was excavation of a Roman and Migration period settlement in Jakuszowice where a significant number of subaerati were identified. Over the last few years the intensification of the process of...
The first mention in written sources confirming periodic recoinage in Poland relates to the 1170s suggesting a well-developed process. Therefore its origins presumably go back to an earlier period, the reign of Bolesław III the Wrymouth (1102–1138). Coins of six types were attributed to this ruler. According to the current state of research, some types were replaced by others from the...
Archaeological excavations of the acropolis of the ancient city of Cossyra (modern Pantelleria) have been in progress for over twenty years now. Coin finds from this site offer new insights into the monetary circulation on the island, assisting attribution of some coins to the mint of Cossyra. Coins with the name of the island in the legend exist in Punic and Latin letters, but the date of...
The small silver uninscribed coins showing a lion protome on the obverse and a quadripartite incuse square on the reverse are known in the numismatic literature as “the hemidrachms of the Thracian Chersonese''. They form one of the main currencies in Thrace during the 4th century BC. Only recently their intensive issue, together with the other poleis on the peninsula, has been revisited in...
This paper explores the stylistic and compositional influences on the Lloyd's Medal for Saving Life at Sea, engraved by William Wyon in 1836. It suggests that Wyon, who is credited with the original design, assembled a collage of disparate elements which nevertheless act in harmony, resulting in a successful and enduring example of neoclassical composition.
Plus additional 10 min. break
Even if the study of coin graffiti has been revived for several years, Punic coins have been left out, despite the interest that such a study has for the understanding of a coinage which remains poorly understood in many respects.
This communication aims to approach this subject from a quantitative and qualitative point of view. Firstly, the large corpus available allows us to identify trends...
A major increase in the volume of finds of Roman Imperial denarii subaerati (plated denarii) in Barbaricum noted in recent years has contributed to expandingour understanding of the occurrence of these coins on this territory. It is more than likely that some of these subaerati were manufactured in eastern areas of the Barbaricum at least since the end of the 3rd century. Of course this does...
The so-called Thracian Chersonese, today the Gallipoli / Gelibolu Peninsula, has always been an important strategic point as a bridge between Europe and Asia. The peninsula extends parallel to the coast of Asia Minor, with the Hellespont between the two. The coinages of most Greek coastal settlements situated there were short-lived, represented by a small volume of bronzes of different...
The 16 kg hoard of Padanian drachmas was discovered at Manerbio in 1955. Its size is exceptional, its composition remarkable: the deposit is divided into three series, attributed to three Cisalpine peoples: the Cenomans, the Insubres and the Libui (?) (ARSLAN 2017). Recent metal analyses established that these three series of coins were minted from the same silver stock. This unusual...
By 2021, traces of a high-medieval settlement were identified in the vicinity of Ternopil’. Finds included an ingot of bronze-lead alloy and a hoard of forty-one coins, spread over a small area. All the coins come from twelfth century Italy: forty from Lucca and one from Genoa. This discovery is particularly remarkable in context of coin finds from Halych Ruthenia. Recent finds revealed a...
The city of Elea-Velia, a Phocaean foundation on the Tyrrhenian coast of South Italy, have been explored from the 1960s. More than 10,000 coins have been recovered during archaeological investigations. The study of the coins, still in progress, is conducted by the Chair of Greek and Roman Numismatics of the University of Salerno (DiSPaC).
A substantial percentage of finds are late Roman...
Developed with FileMaker Pro, our "Antic monetary facies" database contains 40,000 records. Its transformation into a collaborative web tool entails a reorganization of the structure by distinguishing between data files, which can be made available at a later date, and the descriptive thesaurus under Opentheso (a web-based thesaurus management tool dedicated to the management of vocabularies),...
Archaeological excavations on the site Carevi Kuli, Strumica brought in a significant amount of numismatic material, including 262 individual finds, 8 mini-hoards (3 to 11 pcs.) and 3 hoards (18 to 21 pcs). Carevi Kuli is located on a hill which rises southwest of the city of Strumica where important ancient roads intersected: the ancient road Astibo-Astrajon-Dober-Idomene-Thessaloniki. Two of...
According to the generally accepted view coins bearing the head of goddess r. on the obverse and spearhead with legend X A on the reverse were struck at Chalkis in Aiolis. Currently their circulation has been confirmed in the Troad, especially in Kebren and its vicinity. As there is no city in the region with a name starting with “Xa”, these coins could have be minted by Charidemos, a famous...
Despite its key role in the current historical discourse, the early Hellenistic coinage of Adaios is, at the same time, one of the most controversial topics in Thracian numismatics. After a half-century long discussion, the identity of this figure, as well as the chronology of his coins and the location of the mint, remain uncertain. While taking into account both textual and material...
Dated to c. 250-210 on independent grounds, a newly published bronze khalkous (1.9g) of the Khaones (E. Baldi and W. Bubelis in Butrint 7) likely belongs to the dynamic political situation in Epeiros in 234/3 BC, when the Molossian Kingdom fell and its partner the Epeirote Symmachy was replaced by the Epeirote Koinon. The new khalkous features types (Artemis/thunderbolt in wreath with...
Most researchers now agree that fur money was in circulation in 11th-13th century Rus’. This form of commodity money was in use only in the cultural and political borders of Early Rus’ and did not spread beyond its borders. The paper examines the known written accounts handed down by travellers to Rus’ in the Middle Ages and second-hand eyewitness reports about its customs, and discusses the...
Between 2008 and 2014, the University of Leicester (UK) in collaboration with the Museo della Marineria (Cesenatico, IT), investigated the Roman site of Ad Novas near modern Cesenatico. During the 2006 evaluation and 2008-14 campaigns, a total of 525 coins were recovered; 85% of the assemblage dates from 1st century BC to 5th century AD.
Despite the geographical proximity to the Ostrogoth and...
Recent years have seen the successful online publication of a number of virtual union catalogues for coinages from different fields of numismatics, for example Online Coins of the Roman Empire (OCRE) and PELLA. However, the development of such a resource for the coinage of pre-Roman Iron Age Europe presents a number of new challenges. Thus, there is no single universal standard reference work...
In 1995 a hoard of 508 coins was found inside the wall of a late Hellenistic building in the Kasfiki field, at Palaiopolis on the island of Kerkyra, Greece. The archaeological context indicates the Kasfiki hoard was probably buried in the late third century BCE during the siege of Kerkyra by Pyrrhus of Epirus. This hoard is of great interest because it includes only silver drachms and...
The Roman world was flooded by images; images which carried cultural, religious, ethical and political messages. They could be encountered everywhere, from jewellry to public and private buildings, and obviously, on coins issued by the imperial and the provincial mints alike.
The issues of the cities the Roman province of Thrace appeared just after the integration into the Roman Empire....
The Iron Age was the period in which the first coins appeared in Britain, and they are a major source of information on late Iron Age society. The main dataset of this material culture is the Celtic Coin Index (CCI), housed at the University of Oxford. Up to now, it has existed mainly on paper index cards (more than 80,000). This talk introduces the Celtic Coin Index Digital (CCID) project...
The author presents an up-to-date chronological classification of silver payment ingots from Eastern Europe that circulated in 11th-15th centuries, describing eleven main types classified by morphology and weight. Based on past and most recent finds from two last decades, new types of payment ingots such as Lithuanian triangular, Volhynian worm-shape, and local varieties of Novgorod-type...
It is traditionally accepted that the use of coins in classical funerary contexts was linked to the famous myth of Charon, the ferryman who carried souls to the afterlife in exchange for one or more coins. However, it seems that this practice continued throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, despite the fact that these individuals were in a Christianised society where pagan practices...
Thanks to the Aureus and Atmoce projects funded by the French Région Centre-Val de Loire, a metal analysis database for ancient coins, especially Celtic coins, was recently developed at the IRAMAT laboratory in close partnership with the MSH Val de Loire.
Interoperable, in particular with the Gallica database (BnF), the AeMa database will make available to the scientific community the results...
Technological development has introduced an entirely new research environment. Due to the need for new types of scientific resources, and access to the materials, Digital Numismatics (DN) has become a field of dynamically developed tools and research databases.
The number of operating products is already impressive, and the topic of the user perspective on their actual implementation in the...
moderated by Fleur Kemmers and Nanouschka Myrberg Burström
One of the most intriguing problems in East European medieval numismatics is the cessation of minting around mid-11th century, followed by a coinless period which lasted until the second half of 14th century. One form of commodity money in use at the time was the grivna. Several types of these silver standard payment ingots are distinguished depending on their shape and weight.
In Poland the...
Since the late 380s all the bronze coins struck by Western mints were of the smallest AE4 denomination. Starting from 404, the mint of Rome resumed the issuing of AE3 coins, characterised by the presence of the S M mark (Sacra Moneta) associated with the mint mark. The S M mark always appears in subsequent issues of the mint of Rome until 417-418, after which it is no longer found in Western...
As part of an interdisciplinary project a wide range of non-destructive and destructive examinations of cistophori were carried out in order to answer archaeometallurgical questions. The destructive testing methods include the examples minted before 39 BC. The non-destructive testing methods include those minted up to the Hadrianic era. Destructively examined coins delivered information about...
Numismatic die studies are notoriously labor intensive to conduct by hand, and often take years to complete. Recent years have seen an uptick in computational approaches to die studies, taking advantage of computer vision and unsupervised clustering techniques to both improve accuracy and greatly reduce time required. This paper presents recent developments in the Computer-Aided Die Study...
Over the past decade, efforts have intensified to demonstrate that Roman authorities deliberately targeted selected messages to specific population groups (socially or geographically defined). In our paper, we would like to present the results of a re-evaluation of these attempts (above all, those published by Elkins, Maunders and Ellithorpe, thus concerning coins of various emperors with...
Witold Kula, considered one of the founders of the Polish school of social and economic history linked to the French school of Annales, was at the origin of the current called “historical metrology”. Since its founding work in the 1970s, which focused on the logic of traditional measurement systems, studies of weights and measures systems now take into account both the technical aspects and...
This paper explores the dual coinage struck by Byzantium and Chalcedon featuring the head of Demeter on the obverse and a local deity on the reverse. Previously these two coinages were seen as a type of short-lived emergency measure intended to raise funds for Byzantium during the third quarter of the 3rd century BC. However, using a revised and updated die study of Byzantium's “Demeters”...
The Sylloge Nummorum Parthicorum is an international research project with the aim of using coins as an important primary source for a better understanding of the history and culture of the Parthian period , c. 248 BC – AD 224.
The Directors of the Project, Michael Alram (Vienna), Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis (London) and Fabrizio Sinisi (Vienna) are working with an international team and holdings...
The spread of ancient coins counterfeits leads to historical and social distortions. Considering this, the need for adequate measures rises. In the last two years, the active collaboration of Bulgarian and international researchers within the framework of the ACCS Network and the project “Measuring Ancient Thrace” has provided a sustainable basis and new perspectives in this direction.
There...
This presentation discusses database management challenges met and overcome while publishing Sylloge Nummorum Parthicorum Volume 2, and the ongoing preparations for Volume 4. In addition to technical database management issues, the process of acquiring, organizing and cataloguing more than 70,000 Parthian coins is discussed. Finally, the process of preparing a photos and text catalogue in...
The obligation to use certified weights and measures is a recurrent topos in Greek literary and epigraphic sources relating to market regulations. Magistrates were required to provide merchants with measuring instruments and weights and to control the use of official weights and measures in transactions. These controls took the form of countermarks or other types of marks on the instruments...
The colonies located on the north-western shore of the Black Sea during the 3rd century BC were under the rule of the Thracian king Lysimachos. Their rebellion against Lysimachos led by the colony of Kallatis caused a conflict which continued over several decades, and directly influenced their development, the monetary circulation and their relationships. The aim of this paper is to trace some...
Immediately after the acclamation of a Roman emperor, the mint of Rome issued coins in the name of the new princeps. Within these first issues, coin portraits were sometimes minted which resembled more closely the portrait of the deceased emperor than that of the new one.
This resemblance can be explained by the fact that those in charge at the mint were not yet familiar with the portrait of...
In early 2019 the American Numismatic Society partnered Richard Schaefer in the Roman Republican Die Project, aiming at making available to the public his archive of over 300,000 pictures of Roman Republican Coinage, likely the largest die study ever undertaken. The first part of this project consisted of the digital preservation of Schaefer’s archive and was completed in June 2019. The second...
This paper will presentnew information about coins and coin hoards from the valley of the Middle Mesta River dating to the 5th - 4th century BC. We will present new archaeological and historical data based on the accurate analysis of alloy composition (in %) of the coins and the exact findspots of some of the coin finds.
The nondestructive technique of X-ray fluorescence was used to identify...
Published in 2020, Volume 2 of the SNP series examines coin production in the Parthian Empire during the reign of Mithradates II (c. 122/121–91 BC). Although the vast majority of Mithradates’ coinage is undated and the identification of many issuing mints obscure, research findings from SNP 2 demonstrate that silver and bronze coin production became increasingly centralised during this period...
The Coinage of the Roman Republican Online (CRRO), a joint American Numismatic Society and British Museum collaboration, was published online in early 2015. This digital corpus, based on Michael Crawford's 1974 Roman Republic Coinage, has since drawn together more than 60,000 example specimens from dozens of collections. More recently, the information system on which CRRO lies has been...
For four centuries, Roman merchants, collectors and money changers used normalized weights. These unparalleled instruments soon became a medium for a homogenous repertoire of forms and images. The precious materials, the iconography and the inscriptions engraved by the imperial factories incapsulate an array of references to the visual culture of citizens. Actors of an ecumene that was both...
It was suspected that a surprising number of originally holed or otherwise damaged aurei have been “repaired” over the last century and have subsequently entered the market undisclosed. A survey of the Coin Archives digital database of auction results of the last ~20 years was performed identifying 453 damaged aurei (scratches, nicks, or holes). Eight were subsequently “repaired” and...
Nowadays, one of the most widely used non-destructive methods is digitization, both two-dimensional and three-dimensional. It provides many opportunities in presenting the cultural heritage to the general and professional public.
I will discuss the procedures used in the digitization of the coins of the Roman Empire, from which three-dimensional computer models are created through 3D...
During the pandemic, museum visitors became increasingly reliant on the internet for acquiring information about collections they could not visit in person. In 2020, curatorial and imaging staff at the Art Institute of Chicago launched a project to investigate how Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) can be used to present ancient inscribed works to new virtual audiences. Digitally...
With ten mints issuing drachms, in addition to that of Seleucia on the Tigris dedicated to the tetradrachms, the reign of Phraates IV (37-2 BCE) marks a peak in the territorial distribution of Parthian coin production. Differently from the large silvers, coined only between 37 and 23 BCE, drachms were struck from the beginning to the end of the reign. The work carried out for the forthcoming...
This talk gives an overview of the online Greek die study database developed by the ERC “SILVER”. Based on the two "Recueils quantitatifs des émissions monétaires" by Fr. de Callataÿ (1997, 2003) whose different categories of data it reproduces, it expands the number of cases to more than 1000. The site allows for the interoperability with other websites, quantitative data for each series and...
The vast majority of scales and especially weights are known to us today without an archaeological context. If we look at the few examples that come from archaeological findings, we can detect a significant difference between the Mediterranean area and the region north of it. While in the Mediterranean region these instruments are mainly found in settlements, outside the Mediterranean region...
The massive digitization of numismatic collections leads to questioning the role that an institution like the BnF can play in the digital numismatic world. In addition to the typological approach already developed on several linked open data portals, it is possible to consider the die as another way to gather/distinguish ancient coins issues. Thanks to several hundred thousand coins digitized,...
This paper provides an overview of work to produce a new corpus and die study of Athenian Wappenmünzen. The study is intended to replace the famous but now well out of date 1924 book of Charles Seltman (Athens, Its Coinage and History). We review the changes in coin numbers and die patterns. Among the results are challenges to Seltman’s various claims for various reverse dies linking coins...
Having the 6th c. B.C. as a starting point, Georgian money issues gradually absorbed all the types, styles and standards which were popular around, especially those from the West. Greek deities and their symbols (Apollo, Helios, Hecate, Nike, Tyche, Dionysus, Dioscuri, Isis) were replaced by the Roman types (Emperor, Mars, Concordia, Annona, Victoria, Mithras), and the pagan deities – by...
One of the largest online numismatic catalogues is hosted by Numista, serving as a knowledge base for coins, banknotes, medals, tokens, and other related items. The catalogue, numbering currently more than 280,000 types, is entirely free toaccess and addresses private collectors, museums, and researchers alike. The distinguishing features of Numista are (i) its collaborative nature, the...
The chronology of the coinage of Hadrian is notoriously problematic. This paper presents the results of a die analysis of 1,800 aurei of Hadrian dating to the first twelve years of his reign. These coins proved to have been struck by 403 obverse and 369 reverse dies. The links between these dies make it possible to reconstruct the chronology of many of the coin types in this period, at times...
This paper will introduce a group of Roman coins repurposed in Islamic times through the use of countermarks. The practice of countermarking coins is normally associated with the appropriation and transformation by a different authority of coins already in circulation. The coins under analysis, however, struck between the second and fourth centuries AD, show very little sign of wear, thus...
The paper presents an overview of all the groups of coins discovered on the territory of Georgia which document the relationship of the Graeco-Roman world and Georgia. The overview will be based on the classification made within the framework of the project “Online English-Georgian Catalogue of Georgian Numismatics”. The groups of coins are as follows: 1) Colchian money (“Colchian tetri...
Copper-alloy weights were used throughout the late medieval and Renaissance periods to control and monitor the circulation of gold coins, and their presence on archaeological sites offers a unique means of evaluating the nature and extent of gold circulation in places that otherwise lack gold coin finds. This paper uses more than 1000 finds of fourteenth- to sixteenth-century coin weights from...
This paper will investigate digital numismatic collections management challenges and potential solutions using the national collections at the National Museum of Finland and the Finnish Heritage Agency as a case study. Concentrating on coin finds, we will discuss digital heritage challenges that stem from combining heterogeneous older and modern catalogues and data, and in designing...
a) Roman and Campanian settlement and trade, led by Michele Stefanile.
b) Mining and Roman Imperialism: Mining, metal supply, provincial administration, led by Alfred Hirt.
c) The social and economic institutions of trade in the western Mediterranean in the last two centuries BCE, led by Koenraad Verboven.
d) Conclusions, and opportunities and priorities for further work, led by Suzanne Frey-Kupper.
According to the literary evidence and the scale of Athenian coin production during the 5th and 4th century BC the Laurion mining “industry” boomed during the classical period. This view is strongly supported by the archaeological record. The classical mining landscape in South Attica is preserved to this day in an astonishing number and diversity of sites: mines, workshops, furnaces and many...
This paper will present the preliminary findings from the second phase of the Roman Republican Die Project, with data focused on the important historical period of 90 to 75 BCE. Findings from RRDP allow for updates to Crawford’s RRC from the addition of previously unobserved control marks to the revision of Crawford’s typologies. Most important, however, are the possibilities of quantification...
Roman vota coinage issued on the occasion of imperial anniversaries is known primarily as a phenomenon of the fourth century. Numismatists who study late ancient coinage are sooner or later bound to stumble upon the typology of vota legends (e.g., VOT X MVLT XX) within a wreath, a feature which is typical for these coins. However, coin types explicitly naming imperial anniversaries first...
Little is known about the techniques for manufacturing plated coins among the very earliest issues of Greek (and world) money. In this study we present neutron and synchrotron X-ray analyses of a plated silver coin produced in Athens around 525-515 BC. This unpublished coin, ACANS 14A09, is a tetradrachm, which should have been made with 17.2gm of silver. But this ‘false’ coin (with its bronze...
The paper proposes an approach to modern monetary metrology through the study of Barcelona as a manufacturing center of scales to weigh currency. To this end, the unpublished documentation from the Farriols workshop in Barcelona, now kept in the Gabinet Numismàtic de Catalunya (Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya), will be examined . The workshop and a shop were founded in the 18th century and...
The proposed paper will present the results of a new regional study, which brings together the Late Classical and Hellenistic bronze coinages of five mints in the eastern foothills of Mount Ossa (Thessaly, Greece): Eureai, Eurymenai, Homolion, Meliboia and Rhizous. Combining a detailed die study with a close examination of the five mints’ topographic context, the paper not only works towards a...
The Georgian coins are an important primary source for the history of Georgia and neighboring countries. Georgian coins minted from the 10th to 12th centuries are known as "Georgian-Byzantine coins". The Georgian rulers are mentioned not only with their official Georgian titles, but their Byzantine titles appear as well. Davit III, Bagrat IV, Giorgi II are mentioned with their Byzantine court...
Radiates minted in huge quantities in Gaul, Germania and Britain in imitation of the antoniniani of the Gallic emperors (mainly) during the last quarter of the 3rd century, occupy a prominent place in the monetary circulation and the numerous hoards of the period. Although there is a broad consensus identifying this coinage as necessity coins, major questions remain unresolved concerning the...
The Coin Hoards of the Roman Republic database started in 1989 as part of a master’s dissertation. It was greatly expanded for my PhD, and then again for subsequent publications especially my book in 2007. The database was a personal research database, and hoards which fulfilled my personal research objectives were targeted. In 2011, I was approached by the late Rick Witschonke with a view to...
Our paper reports on all new numismatic materials discovered in recent years spanning the early middle ages, high middle ages and late middle ages, starting with the Arab period in the Caucasus and Georgia in the 8th century and ending with the abolition of the Kingdom of Georgia.
In our article we discuss the importance of these new discoveries for future researches in the history, culture,...
We propose to reconstruct, using numismatic evidence, how the mint of Rome projected the image of Gallienus (253-68), one of the most important and enduring emperors of the period of military anarchy, . The most interesting statistics will be highlighted, and particular attention paid to the study of the distribution, denominations, deities and different reverses and legends involved, an...
The Wappenmϋnzen were the first coin types at Athens instigated by the Peisistratid tyrants in the third quarter of the sixth century BCE with changing types long thought to be 'heraldic' rather than state-sanctioned, minted in small denominations mainly for domestic use. Late in the sixth century, a standard 'owl' type was adopted, minted primarily in large denomination tetradrachms. The...
In the 16th century, a unique system of control over priests’ participation in the masses was introduced in the Cathedral of Majorca. It consisted of one or several lead tokens that were handed at a precise moment of the rite, to be exchanged for currency at the end of the month. Although the system had been introduced at a troublesome time in the history of this Mediterranean island, its...
From their founding in 1847, the Republic of Liberia vigorously sought to ensure both their political and financial independence from the imperial nations then asserting dominion over the African continent. To this end, the Republic struck a limited series of one and two cent copper pieces, dated 1847 and 1862, respectively. These were produced by William Taylor of London, who is perhaps...
Facing portraits of the emperor are often discussed in the art of late antiquity, but such discussions rarely focus on imperial coinage, where the facing portraits of Gallic emperor Postumus are mark an important step . This paper will argue that these coins represent a decisive step in the development of the facingimperial busts. Facing portraits on the reverse of Roman city coinage of the...
In Central Italy, as the popes consolidated authority over their territorial state and as cities drifted into (and sometimes out of) papal control, mints accordingly passed from communal and/or seigniorial authority under the authority of the popes or their representatives (and sometimes back again). Although the precise moment of transition is often clearly indicated in the relevant...
In the oppidum of Viguera (La Rioja, Northern Spain) a large number of clipped and trimmed bronze coins have been found. Most of the specimens discovered were original AE3 coins, struck throughout the 4th century but converted into AE4 at an uncertain date. A careful examination of these coins shows there are calculated ranges every 0.20 g. This phenomenon suggests that whoever was installed...
Despite having been one of the earliest Greek mainland mints Corinth’s coinage has remained imperfectly understood. We have not had a good handle on the scale, pattern, and chronology of the coinage minted from the early fourth century to the closure of the Greek mint in 146 BCE. A key reason for this problem is that there are too many staters available to complete a die study. Yet, it is...
CHRE (chre.ashmus.ox.ac.uk) is a joint initiative of the Ashmolean Museum and the Oxford Roman Economy Project, providing digital coverage of hoards and single gold coins of all coinages in use within and outside the Roman Empire.
Our data is made available under a CC BY-NC-SA licence and all hoards come with stable permalinks. We also make use of stable digital identifiers for numismatic...
Throughout his life, the Roman merchant, antique dealer and scholar of the first half of the 19th century, Francesco Capranesi acquired an extensive original numismatic collection, now lost. The existence of this collection is confirmed by his will, preserved today in the State Archive of Rome. After outlining the general features of the said numismatic collection, this paper aims to examine...
The identity of the female depicted on Greek period Corinthian coins has often been contested. A decisive case can be argued that the figure is Athena and the iconography depicted by the Corinthian state centered around the Bellerophon myth and its core elements: Bellerophon, Pegasos, Peirene, and Athena. The implications of accepting that Corinth’s iconographic program was cohesively designed...
This paper aims to present the currency of the Late Antique settlement of València la Vella (Riba-Roja de Túria, València), excavated since 2016 by the Institut Català d'Arqueologia Clàssica, with a chronological sequence of late 6th century AD to late 7th century AD, the dating confirmed, among other items, by more than 250 coins recovered from layers dated to the 6th and 7th century....
The paper presents the results of the PhD research project on "The first 100 years of the gold florin of Florence (1252-1351)", carried out at the Universities of Granada (Spain) and Ca’ Foscari of Venice (Italy). The research has involved several museums and institutions in Europe, with the acquisition of new data on documentary sources, archaeological finds and numismatic collections....
The project "Coin Finds Hub - Italy / Rinvenimenti monetali in Italia", promoted by the University of Salerno and supported by national and international bodies, is aimed at the managing and cataloguing of coin records from archaeological contexts within the Italian territory, with the aim of organizing, sharing and reusing the data.
The project involves the construction of a digital platform...
The collection of silver Oriental coins from the Odessa Archaeological Museum numbers 2564 pieces. It includes the issues of 42 various states and dynasties, from Spain and Maghreb to Japan. The chronological range of this collection covers the period from the 2nd century BC to the 1920s. Only a small group of coins from this collection was published, while its greater part still remains...
The minting of aurei at Antioch and Alexandria (Eastern diocese) has been the subject of few publications since the works of K. Pink (1931), C.H.V.Sutherland (1967), P. Bastien (1967) and G. Depeyrot (1995). More generally, the minting of gold coins in the third and fourth centuries has been the subject of several high quality studies (notably Bagnall/Bransbourg 2019) but no in-depth study has...
The paper presents an unpublished cast contorniate, discovered during the urban excavations in the area of Argiletum and now preserved in the Capitoline Coin Cabinet along with other 47 specimens also awaiting publication.
The first part focuses on the contorniate, its material and the production technique, which suggests that this object had a magical use. In the second part, the place of...
The web-based database AFE for finds of ancient coins was developed by David Wigg-Wolf (Römisch-Germanische Kommission) and Karsten Tolle (Big Data Lab, Goethe University Frankfurt). Implementing the principles of LOUD and FAIR data, it employs the concepts and ontology of nomisma.org to facilitate communication with other numismatic facilities, and is further linked to a range of other...
Charles Philippe de Bosset (1773-1845) was a Swiss soldier and British imperial official, who became Governor of Cephalonia in 1810. During his time on the Ionian Islands and elsewhere in the Mediterranean, he built up a large collection of Greek coins and archaeological material. This paper focuses on the numismatic collection which was part donated and part sold to the British Museum in...
This paper aims to investigate the monetary circulation during the Late Roman Empire and Late Antiquity in the city of Dertosa. To do that, we reviewed a large number of coin finds from the archaeological site close to the cathedral. The excavation uncovered significant remains in a high-status sector next to the walls, with evidence of great activity between the 4th and the 8th centuries....
This paper is a summary of my master thesis in which I collected all the coins from the poleis of Corinth and Maroneia from the Archaic through to the Hellenistic periods. These cities chose the (winged) horse as a motif, so I compared the various representations with other poleis in the Mediterranean. The overall concept was to study the movement of the horse. Next to the usual canon of the...
The paper analyses the role of the coins of the Este mints (Ferrara, Modena and Reggio) in the development of Italian monetary circulation between the 12th and 15th centuries, a role which certainly goes beyond the borders of the small territories they belonged to. This conclusion is based partly on coin finds, but also on the diffusion of certain coin names in archival documents and sources...
In November 2015, the collection of dies and punches of the Royal Mint of Belgium was transferred to KBR (Royal Library of Belgium). This collection of about 15,000 objects, consists of tools from the old mint workshops of the Southern Netherlands and the Kingdom of Belgium. This material has been preserved for centuries under the name of the Musée des instruments monétaires, and has been...
The paper presents a series of numismatic assemblages recovered from early medieval urban contexts. All of them point to the continuity of the urban model at the centre of the Iberian Peninsula during the 8th century. At the same time, the copper coins recovered from the area around Guadalajara highlight the emergence of new semi-urban spaces as a result of the period of the formation of the...
Recent years have seen a huge increase in the volume of numismatic material reported through public finds recording projects (mostly by metal detectorists), notably in Britain and western Europe. Several of these projects are part of the European Public Finds Recording Network (EPFRN), which now includes members from Denmark (DIME), England and Wales (PAS), Finland (Sualt Project/FindSampo),...
This article will focus on the economy and coinage in Rome between the eighth and tenth centuries, when the city and its mint were under papal control. It will first discuss the reasons why Rome had a small-scale monetary economy even when, in relative terms, it was a large centre with complex political structures. The diverse functions of Roman coinage, and specifically of the Antiquiores,...
The minting activity under Carthaginian authority is a complex, challenging phenomenon which remains far from being fully understood. It is nevertheless a key topic to understand the major economic and social transformations in the central Mediterranean during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. Although epigraphical and historical factors generally contribute to the difficult study of Punic issues,...
Within the framework of my dissertation project on the sacred topography of the northern Greek peninsula of Chalcidice new insights on the coin iconography of Ouranopolis and Cassandreia were gained. Firstly, I will discuss the attribution of Aphrodite Ourania on the Ouranopolitan coins, and will present a new interpretation, which proposes that the coin depicts the god Helios or the...
Different opinions have been expressed about early minting in Riga. Mostly, the authors have relied on the first written source of 1211 which prescribed the minting standard in Riga, although even a much later date of 1225 has also been considered possible. A recent hoard from Western Estonia, consisting of German, Swedish, Gotlandic and English coins as well as silver bars and ornaments,...
At various times over the years, the American Numismatic Society’s members and leaders have demonstrated an interest in Polish numismatics. One of the ANS’s early presidents built a sizeable collection of Polish coins and medals. It was loaned to the Society after his death but was withdrawn after a few years. For a while, the Polish section of the ANS’s cabinet was developed mostly through...
Short presentation of the podium discussion structure; introduction of the topic
Panelist introduction
A large data set of LA-ICP-MS analyses of Roman gold coins sheds light on the development of gold coinage under the Republic and the Early Empire. As is well known, gold coinage was a latecomer in Roman monetary history and large issues remained rare until the age of Caesar. After Caesar however, gold coinage became a regular feature of the Roman monetary system. This major change in the...
The study of Visigothic monetary circulation is one of the key issues in the field of Visigothic numismatics. The most complete work on the subject is almost half a century old and many things have changed since then; new hoards and isolated finds have entered the corpus of Visigothic coinage. Recently, partial studies on the Visigothic kingdom have used numismatic evidence to support theories...
Questions to all panelists (10 min. per panelist)
After the extinction of the domestic Babenberg dynasty, the Bohemian king and Moravian margrave Přemysl Otakar II († 1278) came to power in Austrian Lands. He gradually seized control over Lower and Upper Austria, Styria, Carniola and Carinthia. His policy was to ensure economic development: founding cities, protecting trade routes and minting coins. The government of Přemysl Otakar II...
This paper reports on the preliminary study of numismatic material deriving from rescue excavations conducted by the Ephorate of Antiquities of Chalcidice and Mount Athos on ancient Cassandreia, in the Chalcidice peninsula, in Northern Greece. The Hellenistic city was founded by Cassander in 315 B.C. over the ruins of the Corinthian colony of Potidaea.
The numismatic material consists of...
Hoy en día no existe una BBDD sobre la moneda antigua que aglutine exclusivamente los hallazgos en el territorio de Hispania y que atienda con especial cuidado a los datos referidos a su contexto arqueológico y visualización geoespacial de acuerdo a los preceptos de estandarización internacional que han dotado de éxito a otras iniciativas europeas y americanas. Dicha información carece así del...
This paper will focus on the monetary distribution in southern Italy in the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages. Thanks to the information about discoveries of coins collected in FLAME, it was possible to amasss a large series of data deriving from excavations and single findings. In addition to the quantitative analyiss of individual emissions and their areas of origin, a distributional...
Coins not only have an ancient history, but a modern one. By the early 20th century, Samuel-Jean Pozzi (1846-1918) and Fenerly Bey (?-1911) had assembled important collections of ancient coins that are now scattered among various museums and private collections. These prominent men were both practitioners and teachers of gynecology and students of numismatics—thus, alike in their vocations and...
With Money and Government in the Roman Empire (1994), Richard Duncan-Jones revolutionized ancient economic history by estimating the value of coinage in circulation in the mid-second century CE Roman empire through numismatic and statistical methods. His work implied an anomalously high monetization ratio for an ancient economy, given past and current estimates of Roman GDP. This paper offers...
Am Beginn des 13. Jahrhunderts begannen weltliche und geistliche Herrscher in Westfalen einen neuen Münztyp zu prägen. Anstelle des umlaufenden Kölner Pfennigs ahmten sie die gleichwertigen englischen Sterlinge nach. Die ersten Sterlingnachahmungen prägten Kaiser Otto IV. (1198/1208 – 1218) in Dortmund, die Bischöfe von Münster und die Grafen von Schwalenberg. Die Entwicklung dieser...
This study seeks to understand how the economic paradigm shift observed at the end of the Late Antiquity reshaped local economies. During the second half of the sixth century the region of the southern Balkans underwent many economic changes followed by a prolonged recession. This recession played a major role in the transformation of the urban centers, a process which differed by region. The...
Two major trends have determined the work in museums in recent years: digitization and provenance research. Numismatic provenance research is currently mainly carried out by non-numismatists, though. On the one hand, these specialized provenance researchers use methods and sources that numismatists are not very familiar with and therefore may be expected to contribute potentially new insight....
In a 2013 paper (`What happened to gold coinage in the 3rd c. A.D.?’, JRA 26) I showed that while gold coins of this period are scarce as single finds and in hoards, die-studies show that production was as high as in the 2nd century. Aurei ceased to be struck to a consistent weight standard at this time, pointing to a change in their use. It was suggested that the State became better at...
A unique obol issued in the name of Hippias of Athens found in the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris has intrigued numismatists for over a century, some of them even questioned its authenticity. Another such obol was sold at auction in 2017 and appears to be from the same dies as the Paris unique specimen. This new example, definitely genuine as demonstrated in this paper, gives us the...
Switzerland's federal structure with its 26 cantons is a challenge when dealing with coin finds, as every canton has its own archaeological service and decides how to deal with their findings, including entering them – or not – in their own databases. For 30 years now, the Swiss Inventory of Coin Finds (SICF) has been collecting and creating coin find data in a standardised way, publishing...
The ‘Münzfundkatalog Mittelalter/Neuzeit’ of the German Numismatic Commission has been a long-term project since 1950. It comprises today approx. 22,000 summary entries on hoards and single coin finds from the period AD 750 to the 20th century. Over the past 20 years, it has been digitized, now as a part of the KENOM project, and updated in cooperation with various heritage conservation...
Egypt has long attracted numismatists with interest in Classical Greek coins because of the abundant finds of Athenian owls in our region. Recent research has challenged the mass production of imitation Athenian owls even though there is evidence to confirm their production. The remains of such findings remain scarce and mostly know but very old literature, mentioning large hoards found...
The invasions of the Slavs, Avars, Antes, and Bulgars of the Balkan provinces of the Byzantine Empire during the 6th and 7th centuries have been used to explainthe changes in coin circulation observed in the Northern Balkans in this period. The FLAME Project database represents a unique accumulation of mapped data that can be used to challenge some of the monocausal explanations offered in...
The Silesian coinage at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is still poorly understood. We know over a hundred types of Silesian kwartniks, stylistically and typologically a very mixed group. Most kwartnik types are without a legend, and references in the written sources are scarce. Therefore, for the time being these coins must remain largely anonymous.
Stylistic analogies...
Intensive study in recent years of Roman gold coins found in the Barbaricum has fundamentally altered our understanding of their presence and prominence here, as well as our knowledge of the periods when they arrived. Moreover, the finds of Roman gold coins in former barbarian territories are key to understanding certain economic processes in the Roman Empire. An example is a hypothesis of A....
A number of Peloponnesian coins of the 4th and 3rd century BC have been ascribed to the Arcadian Koinon, which flourished between 370 and 362 BC. They not only include the very well known staters and triobols with depictions of Zeus and Pan, but also smaller denominations ranging from obols to bronzes. With the exception of the staters and triobols these coins have been studied so far only...
The monastery was founded in 1114 on the site of a Roman camp by Margrave Leopold III of Babenberg and his wife, the Salic Princess Agnes of Waiblingen at their residence in Klosterneuburg.
Right from the very beginning the monastery was a place of scholarship and learning, as is well documented by its sizeable library, and interest taken by the canons in coins and medals. The regularly...
The paper discusses intervention on ancient coins, mostly struck on the territory of the Roman State now preserved in the Ossoliński National Institute in Wrocław and the National Museum in Warsaw. My focus are marks of deliberate alterations observed on the surface of coins – types of intervention, the possibilities and limits for their identification and interpretation. I propose to examine...
After dating the coinage of Huneric (477-484), Gunthamund (484-496) and Thrasamund (496-523) this paper aims to question whether the imitations of the obverses which depict Honorius and Gunthamund respectively were indeed issued by Gunthamund and Thrasamund. The representation of Honorius on the “Anno K” issue (stuck under Huneric) is the same as that of Gunthamund on some of his denarii...
In this paper, I study two short-lived emperors, Trajan Decius and Trebonianus Gallus (along with their sons and co-emperors), and focus on their production of tetradrachms at Antioch. I will present the results of three die studies: one of the first officina for each emperor and another of the third officina under Trebonianus Gallus. These studies provide a window into the scale of production...
The paper analyzes how minting authorities can increase seigniorage through emergency debasements. It examines mechanisms and incentives created by the authorities to withdraw bullion and old/foreign coins from circulation for re-minting. Firstly, in the early phase of an emergency debasement cycle, there are price-lags between the price of silver and consumer prices, since the latter prices...
After the publication of ancient coins in this collection, the focus shifted to the treatment of modern coins and medals. The publication in a form valid at the time – that of a printed book - is now almost obsolete, and the internet is becoming the medium of choice. Before that, however, one has to consider how to arrange the objects of the collection in boxes in the first place. We have put...
The circulation of money in the 5th and 6th centuries remained poorly understood for several decades, mainly as regards bronze coins. Several discoveries of recent decades, as well as the data brought in by the most recent excavations, have now made possible some significant advances for the region of southern Gaul. They have also enabled the resumption of the study of several groups of...
This paper discusses how digital numismatics facilitates new research into ancient Antioch in Syria. My monograph, Antioch in Syria: A History from Coins (300 BCE-450 CE) (Cambridge University Press, 2021), critically reassesses the capital city by applying the techniques of Exploratory Data Analysis and digital mapping to a database of 300,000 coin finds. Although Antioch’s prominence is...
The federal Achaian coinage of the Hellenistic period was produced in a civic framework, in silver of lesser quality than that of the coins of central Greece and the Aetolian koinon. New elements on the monetary history of the Aetolian koinon will be presented. The results of LA-ICP-MS elemental analyses of Achaian and Aeolian coins in the Bibliothèque nationale de France will be compared with...
The hoard from Dębrznik (Lower Silesia) was discovered in 1961. Numbering 6,300 coins it is one of the largest such deposits from this area. The hoard includes Bohemian, Silesian, Lusatian, Polish, German and Hungarian coins. The tpq of 1526 is established by the Bohemian coins of Ferdinand I. In our paper, we propose to focus on the Bohemian coins, including Prague groschen of Wenceslas IV,...
Although typological analysis forms the basis of much numismatic study, it is well recognised that types themselves are modern constructs that are a useful unit of analysis, but whose relationship to the minting process is arbitrary, since different scholars define types in different ways. This paper asks whether the concept of a type might actually have existed in antiquity, and if so, how...
In the last 200 years significant numismatic collections have been established in Lower Austria. Museums, archives, monasteries and the “Landessammlungen Niederösterreich“ own jointly more than 300,000 objects of different age. In addition to the purchased and donated items there are also coin finds. In spite of this abundance of material it is hardly used in scientific works due to the fact...
This paper introduces the main trends and features of the Antiochene coinage in the period between 324 and 610. This period was rather significant for the development of Antioch as it covers the era of tremendous growth when the city served as a residence for various fourth century emperors and reaches the years when Antioch struggled with economic problems, natural catastrophes and Persian...
Circulation of coinage involves not only travel through space but also movement in time: coins enter circulation, then circulate for some longer or shorter amount of time, with greater or lesser intervals of immobility, and finally leave circulation. The amount of time that coins are in circulation is an essential factor determining the monetary supply of the economy. For the Visigothic...
In his catalogue (1927) of the coinage of Demetrios Poliorketes, Edward T. Newell was unable to assign to a mint a substantial body of bronze issues (Newell nos. 162-174), whose characteristic types were a youthful male Head in Corinthian helmet r./ BA, Prow r. On grounds of control iconography and die axis, Newell tentatively assigned these issues to a royal mint in Karia or nearby regions of...
The paper examines the reflection of the mythical origins of Thrace in some interesting monetary issues of Hadrianopolis. These include coins from the times of Gordian III with the image of Orestes, Iphigenia, and Pylades – one of only a few images of Orestes in the Roman provincial coinage. This legendary founder of Hadrianopolis (originally Orestias) is shown with his sister and cousin...
During the Middle Ages and early modern times, coinage was often characterized by a shortage of small change. The main reason was the higher cost of production of low denominations, which encouraged the authorities to mint higher denominations. Another factor was that small change was better as a means of payment than larger denominations, which led the people to hold on to the small coins. In...
Marcel Jungfleisch, a famous numismatist who lived in Cairo in the first half of the 20th century, made an impressive work of collecting data on coin collectors. His work, held by the Institut français d’archéologie orientale in Cairo, consists of 17,461 paper cards representing about 16,000 individuals with information (for part of them) such as their birth and death dates, place of...
If the numismatic work on the Antioch excavation of 1932-1939 and ensuing coin catalogue production were a relay race, Dorothy Waagé, its anchor, would ultimately have run every leg - and crossed the finish line more than once.
Waagé joined the Antioch Expedition as her husband’s assistant in 1937, for the 6th of 9 excavation seasons, with no prior numismatic experience and feeling “almost...
Der Beitrag behandelt römische Münzfunde aus der frühesten Phase des Legionslagers in Novae (Bulgarien). Als solches konzentriert sie sich auf julisch-claudische Prägungen aus der Zeit bis zur Regierung Neros, die mit dem Ende der Stationierung der Legio VIII Augusta in Novae zusammenfällt. Der Vergleich von veröffentlichten Funden und neueren Exemplaren aus der Forschung des Zentrums für...
A wreck with its entire cargo was discovered in 2004 in the Java Sea off the town of Cirebon. Chinese coins found on board helped to date the shipwreck to the 10th century. The main cargo consisted of iron ore, tin and silver ingots and ceramics from China and present-day Thailand. The accompanying cargo consisted of semi-precious stones, objects made of gold and other metals, glass beads of...
This paper outlines, by examining Cretan coin hoards, coin circulation patterns on the island over the centuries, highlighting connections between the major Cretan cities minting coins, and drawing attention to significant variations in terms of quantities and metals over time. The presence of foreign coins in hoards affords insight into the relationship between Cretan cities and other...
For the first time ever, a specially designed gallery dedicated to numismatics was opened at the Yale University Art Gallery in spring 2022. The gallery displays the depth and breadth of the Yale Numismatic collection, the largest numismatic collection at any American university.
Although the numismatic collection at Yale dates to the early 19th century, never before has it been exhibited in...
The ancient city of Barikot/Bazira is located in the Swat Valley (Uddiyana) in present-day northern Pakistan. The excavations of the Italian Archaeological Mission over 23 seasons (1984–2021) have yielded 469 coin finds, catalogued and analysed within the framework of a project supported by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. These finds cover a time-span from the 3rd century BCE to the 10th...
The drachms of Dyrrhachium and Apollonia occupy a special place in the monetary landscape of Dacia of the 1st century BC. Large quantities of these coins arrived north to the Danube region as a result of the economic and political events taking place in the region. The popularity of these coins sparked a widescale process of counterfeiting. Despite their importance the drachms of Dyrrhachium...
Decanummia of type MIB 229 in Hahn's typology were produced over a relatively long period. The earliest of these coins bear a mark of the 26th year of Justinian's reign, the latest date from the 38th year of his reign. Their mint has long been a matter of numismatic debate. Numismatists have attributed these coins to Italian mints: Ravenna (DOC) or Rome (BMC, MIB) and they undoubtedly share...
Eight silver coin hoards from the territory of present-day Serbia (the province of Upper Moesia, and parts of the provinces of Lower Pannonia and Dalmatia) include thirteen drachms from Asia Minor mints of Lycia, Amisus and Caesarea (Cappadocia). Eight drachms belong to the mint of Lycia, four were issued by the mint of Amisus and just one was coined in Caesarea.
The aim of the paper is to...
Inflation had never been a topic of a museum exhibition. With the outbreak of World War I the gold standard was given up. In Germany the war was financed by war bonds and by printing money. Already by 1919, the mark had lost 90 % of its value. Despite the galloping inflation until 1922 there was full employment. But finally in November 1923 the mark went under. The currency reform made a 1...
During the Early Byzantine period (498—720) silver was by far the least used metal for minting coins. As a result, most studies and reference works have focused on gold and copper coinage. In the year 615, however, the hexagram was introduced, reviving silver as a day-to-day currency in the East. To this day this denomination is little understood. Moreover, thanks to the coin trade and hoards,...
A unique manuscript kept in the Matenadaran in Yerevan shows that towards the end of the rule of the Qara Qoyunlu Jahan Shah (1438-1467), in 1465 the Armenian nobility declared Smbat from the Artsrunid house of Sefedinian the king of Armenia. His power, which apparently lasted only two years, extended to Akdamar Island, Van and Vostan cities. The two cities represented a single unified fief...
The resumption of systematic excavations on Lyttos (/Lytos/Lyktos) prompts us to examine the character and monetary behaviour of one of the four most prominent Cretan cities, lying in Central Crete. The importance of this rival of Knossos, Phaestos and Gortys, eventually controlling a safe natural port (Chersonesos), is reflected by its minting activity starting from the mid-5th c. BC through...
After the collapse of the Mauryan empire, political control in the Indian subcontinent fragmented, with new regional polities coming to the fore, several of which issued coinage for local circulation. In the Punjab, from 2nd century BCE-1st century CE, several janapadas (tribal clans) issued coins, but only one city state: Pratishthana. Located in the eastern Punjab, the ancient site of...
In January 2020, during the fieldwork carried out by the “Aswan-Kom Ombo Archaeological Project” in the desert hinterland of Aswan, southern Egypt, a small Byzantine hoard was brought to light.
The hoard consists of 8 folles and 15 dodecanummi, struck at the mints of Constantinople, Antiochia and Alexandria, with a starting and closing date of AD 512 - AD 641.
The coins were found scattered...
Countermarks are marks placed on the coins that can define their value, user, and territory of circulation. They could have been put there by the mints on their own coins or by other centers because, e.g., production was insufficient. Sometimes marks were made on coins from an earlier period, often badly preserved to confirm their value or return them into circulation.
Countermarks have been...
The paper studies the metrology of Gupta gold coins using XRF analysis. Kumar (Treasures of the Gupta Empire) had studied the gold content of 179 Gupta gold coins using this methodology. However, his attributions have been challenged and seem unsupportable. This paper looks at Kumar's data using the corrected attributions and then extends the dataset by performing XRF testing on a new batch of...
Cretan coinage presents some special features, such as its own weight standard, the frequent practice of overstriking and countermarking of local and foreign coins, and a limited circulation outside the island. In the late 4th and 3rd century gold coins were issued intermittently by a limited number of mints. Apart from the gold issues of Kydonia with Aeginetan types, as well as those of...
What does a money gallery designed for children look like? This paper will explore the process of developing the Smithsonian’s new money gallery called Really BIG Money. The exhibition is designed for elementary-aged children and features some of the National Numismatic Collection’s biggest objects – in size, denomination, and quantity – selected for their potential to surprise and delight...
The mint of Nicaea was one of the most prolific mints in Roman Bithynia. Situated at important crossroads and in a fertile landscape the city could boast of its natural and economic riches, and used them to compete for prestige and titles. Its chosen rival was the neighbouring city of Nicomedia. For this challenge Nicaea used the coins in deliberate communication strategies which either...
This paper focuses on the gold coins and bracteates excavated from the Shoroon Bumbagar tomb, Mongolia. Among these objects, we identify 16 imitations of Byzantine solidi, 7 imitations of Sasanian drachms and 8 gold bracteates with distinctly Central Asian features which attest rich cultural exchanges in Eurasian late antiquity. Past research (Thierry and Morrison, 1994; Raspopova, 1999;...
The present article is a summary of the author’s post-Doc study now in progress its aim to develop a numismatic Corpus for ancient Aptera, one of the most prosperous towns in Western Crete. Aptera has been characterized as an “emerging” ancient town, because of its impressive ruins that have come to light. Its prolific numismatic output attests its remarkable economic growth (mainly starting...
Les héros fondateurs appartiennent, comme d'autres figures mythiques, à la mémoire collective et à l’imaginaire collectif d’une société ou d’un groupe dans le monde romain. Ils étaient présentés dans les images monétaires reflétant les ambitions des villes et de leurs élites. J’examine les représentations sur les monnaies frappées au IIIe siècle, c'est-à-dire la période qui a fait des...
John Hunyadi is known in historiography as a leading figure of the High Middle Ages for his involvement around the mid-15th century in the struggle against Ottoman expansion in the Balkans. However, numismatic studies show that his economic and monetary policies are less well known. Our study, a comprehensive analysis of a coin collection in the National Museum of History of Romania, leads us...
This paper will explore the significance and impact of Kushan coins found in Xinjiang Province.
Some of the Merovingian obols, fractions of the Merovingian denier in 670-750 have the distinction of being uniface. Unlike in the Germanic environment, in the French tradition this type of coinage is exceptional. The aim of this paper is to complement the corpus with new coins which have appeared on the market, have been reported in private collections or in public collections. The corpus now...
There is no novelty in suggesting the importance of ancient Greek coins as means of propaganda and communication; coinage from its first occurrence in ancient Greece is considered as both an economic and political act since coins provided an exceptional canvas on which political groups and communities represented to themselves and others their views on the world. Furthermore, ancient Greek...
In 1831, a group of thieves entered the Cabinet des médailles of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (then the Bibliothèque royale) and robbed an significant quantity of gold coins, medals and most of Childeric’s treasure. This was a severe loss to one of the richest collections in the world, which can still be felt nowadays: the series of Roman and Syracusan coins, medals of Louis XIV and...
Archaeological evidence confirms early links between the east and the west in the region now known as Xinjiang, in northwest China. The earliest Chinese coins in the region arrived during the Han dynasty. Other kinds of coins were also used in the region: foreign coins, local imitations, and local creations. During the periods of the greatest Chinese influence in the region (the Han and Tang)...
In this paper we report on the "The Ruler in the Mass Media. Frankish image politics on coins and seals in cultural comparison", a dissertation completed at the Goethe University Frankfurt. The extent to which Frankish emperors and kings conveyed political messages through coins and seals in the period from 500 to 1000 is examined. In addition, I discuss interactions and differences to the...
The Cretan monetary context demonstrates how coins also served to underline peculiar aspects of political dynamics on the island: a starting point for ascertaining the ethnogenesis of the Cretan components, a process that has never been completed.
This path will be analyzed using evidence such as the exchange of iconographic types between the main and minor mints, cases of joint production to...
This paper discusses the Roman foundation ritual of the sulcus primigenius on 37 provincial coinages from the first century BCE to the third century CE. This ritual involved plowing a boundary for the new settlement, and was employed during the foundation of colonies in emulation of Romulus’ performance of the rite at Rome. On civic coinages, the ritual was usually represented by a togate...
Coin finds are an excellent indicator of economic relations of any state. They allow us to identify a network of commercial and trade activity that each state was involved in.
Based on finds of Moldovan coins from the 14th-15th century, the author will discuss the involvement of this principality in the international trade along the so-called “Moldovan Trade Route” linking Central Europe with...
Imitation Chinese knife and spade money and Japanese obans are dotted throughout many numismatic collections. The apex of East Asian imitations held in the Yale University Art Gallery’s Numismatic Department is a framed display of Tokugawa era coinage. These object types were not made for coin collectors or enthusiasts, but to satiate a growing Western, middle-class interest in arts of the...
The aim of this paper is to review the models of religious communication and propaganda messages encoded on coins struck by various Cretan mints from the 5th to the 1st century BC. The analysis of the imagery placed on Cretan coins, especially by the major mints, indicates that coin-types often commemorated important mythological and religious traditions in an attempt to support locality and...
At Dharmarajika, Marshall picked up 2077 coins which range in date from 3rd century BCE to 5th century CE. Of this assemblage, he illustrated in his comprehensive field report some selected gold and a few copper coins, leaving the remainder unpublished. The site yielded a large number of coins from different periods, quite a few of them found in the form of hoards, obviously donated by the...
Until 2020 only three Carolingian coins had been discovered in Poland, in the Truso emporium. The situation changed in 2020 and 2021 when members of the "Gryf" Association discovered some XRISTIANA RELIGIO coins in Biskupiec (Warmia, NE Poland). As a result of the excavations by the Museum in Ostróda, and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, a total of 131 XRISTIANA RELIGIO coins of...
Between the 1st c. BC and the 3rd c. AD cities across the Roman Empire could aspire for a colonial status. A new colony, modelled on Rome, imitated it in urban design, government system etc. This transformation would be reflected in the colonial coins.
In general, the Roman colonial coinage features a few distinctive features. First of all, most of them have a Latin inscription. Next, the...
The "impronte ex Vaticane" are one of the sources given by Francesco Gnecchi (1847-1919) in his work on Roman Medallions (1912). With these words Gnecchi referred to a series of casts of ancient coins that he viewed at the beginning of the 20th century. He assumed that they all reproduced ancient coins kept in the Vatican collection before 1798. Research carried out on a similar set of casts...
The coinage of Mircea the Elder (1386-1418) is the most researched topic in Romanian medieval numismatics, justifiably so since most of the Wallachian coins which survive in public collections are issues of Mircea. The main purpose of this paper is to take a closer look at the earliest coins of this Wallachian prince in order to highlight the political and economical situation of Wallachia in...
While scholarship and corpora such as RIC and RPC suggest separate imperial and regional spheres of money recent research stresses the interrelations and interactions between center and periphery in terms of political, economic but also iconographic-cultural exchange. Building on our own studies of the coinage of Edessa and Carrhae which resemble imperial coin types associated with the...
It is generally accepted that coinage functions as a transmission vehicle of political, economic, social and religious messages, possibly exerting an impact on the users. Some 43 Cretan cities which in the Classical and Hellenistic period issued coins with a rich iconographic repertoire and were in a constant conflict, affirmed their origin, ethnicity and religion, as well as their political...
With the death of Lothair I (840), the denarii issued in the Kingdom of Italy stopped bearing the name of the mint of origin. They adopted the representation of a church in the form of a tetrastyle temple accompanied by the legend XPISTIANA RELIGIO, which would remain in sole use until 905/10th c., and were later after progressively abandoned during the 10th century.
This situation gives rise...
This paper will provide the theoretical framework for the session’s topic “Graffiti on money: Cultural practices from ancient to modern times”. Coins and banknotes embody abstract concepts of value and exchange, depending on their economic, political, cultural, and social contexts. Simultaneously, they are part of material culture – objects – that interact with their recipients and users...
As a result of the re-dating of the Artemision deposit (IGCH 1153/1154) to c. 640–620 BC, the chronological range of early electrum coinage has been extended considerably. Die-links seem to connect the Royal Lydian coinage with some Ionian series, including that of Miletos. The early Lydian electrum coinage turns out to be much more complex (to avoid the word "chaotic") than hitherto thought;...
This paper aims to discuss the circulation of coins on the territory of the North Konkan coast in the Early Historic and Medieval periods. Its purpose is also to present a narrative on cultural interactions between the North Konkan and other parts of India. Its role as both a member of the greater South Indian cultural landscape, and as a participant in Indian Ocean trade networks will be...
The conventional numismatic discourse on medieval and early-modern Japan has tended to focus on the identification of numismatic resources themselves. However, for the purpose of further discussion and subsequent development, this session will adopt instead perspectives generated by scholars working in social-economic historical studies. The background to this session thus lies in the...
The material covered by our analysis includes finds from Lesser Poland, the historical and geographic provinces which takes in the present-day voivodeships of Poland: Lesser Poland, Subcarpathian, a large part of Świętokrzyskie, Lublin, as well as southern part of Masovia and the eastern areas of Silesia. As compared to other regions of Poland (Pomerania, Greater Poland, Central Poland,...
I will address the question of whether and to what extent the depiction of Apollo Didymeus could refer to the emperor and his family. This will be discussed on the basis of two examples:
An imperial cult of Caligula was established in Miletus during his reign. We find a coin type with the bust of Apollo on the reverse dating from this period. I will stress the idea of understanding this as...
This paper will introduce the Japanese coins in the collection of the National Museum of Denmark. In particular, the collection made by William Bramsen (1850-1881) in Japan in the early Meiji period (1871-1880) covers all Japanese coins and is outstanding in both quality and quantity. It includes examples of all the so-called Twelve Imperial Coins from the Wadōkaichin coins (708) to the...
The identity of the warrior god portrayed on the reverses of Roman provincial coins of Ariassos in Pisidia is open to debate. He could be the god Ares or the warrior-hero Solymos since the iconography of their depictions on coins is similar. Ancient sources confirm the existence of both cults in Pisidia. Some archaeological evidence also suggests that there is a temple of the deity in...
I will present the first large-scale statistical overview of patterns in hoarding behaviour in ancient Anatolia in the longue durée. As part of the CHANGE project, funded by the ERC, I have collected and digitised data on Anatolian hoards from the Coins Hoards publications, to add to the data from the Inventory of Greek Coin Hoards available at coinhoards.org. The full data-set includes dates,...
A significant number of Roman gold coins that have come down to us bear graphic engravings. Even though these are a common phenomenon they have rarely been studied comprehensively. Based on individual specimens, attempts have been made to establish viable theories on the social or monetary background of numismatic graffiti. This paper will present preliminary results of an extensive material...
The paper will present an overview of monetary exchange networks in the Indian Ocean region over the past two millennia, highlighting important numismatic elements, particularly with regard to typology, whic make coins a significant marker for the study of these networks.
This paper presents an update on the die catalogue of dirham imitations produced somewhere between the Islamic world and the Baltic area in the 9th and 10th centuries. I am currently preparing it for publication on the basis of the work of Gert Rispling from Stockholm. I will briefly present this coinage before reviewing the issues related to the organisation of such an extensive body of...
Bita is a subcategory of bronze coin in circulation between th16th ane d 17th century in Japan.
Conventional discourse has described the historical significance of bita negatively, since bita originated from low quality domestically produced coins or deteriorated imported coins and people tended to avoid using it.
However, recent studies have come to describe bita positively and interpret it...
Thirty years after compiling a list of finds of Roman coins from India it seemed to be worth reviewing the material found since then to see whether the patterns first noted were being sustained or had changed. This work is nearing completion and the presentation will be a summary of the new finds accompanied by new distribution maps.
The collection of the Winterthur Coin Cabinet (Münzkabinett Winterthur) includes a bronze coin of King Philopator (II.?) of Cilicia. The dated coin shows a known type of this king, but uses an era different from the one used on other coins of the same type. This raises questions about the use of different eras in the coinage of one realm, city, or even the same ruler. The paper thus tries to...
In 2018 the Münzkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften started developing a coin typology of the Troad and Mysia based on coins and casts preserved in Berlin and other resources (corpus-nummorum.eu). Coins were produced in this region from 6th century BC until the reign of Gallienus (AD 253-268). The distribution of mints published by...
There are several ancient Roman and Byzantine gold coins in the collection of the Ossolineum. Some of them have different marks on their surface, including lines and marks that can be interpreted as letters. Apart from single letters, there are examples of longer inscriptions, perhaps names. I propose to present a wider perspective on the phenomenon of graffiti on coins and present the results...
Yamada Hagaki （山田羽書）is Japan’s oldest private paper currency. It was issued by the town of Yamada（山田） in Ise（伊勢国, Ise Province, the gateway town（伊勢神宮門前町） to Ise Shrine, from around 1610 to the beginning of the Meiji era. Yamada Hagaki is categorized as a private paper currency（私札), and, as the root of banknotes such as the domain paper currency（藩札）, is thought to be indispensable to Japanese...
Analyzing graffiti on current Renminbi banknotes this paper examines the reasons and socio-economic and cultural circumstances of the appearance of graffiti on Chinese money. Classified according to the currency value, graffiti on RMB appear on larger (50 yuan and 100 yuan) and smaller denominations of banknotes as well as on coins (below 20 yuan). Usually, names written on larger...
The paper will present finds of Roman coins in Southeast Asia that would have arrived along maritime routes. Their dates range from the first to the late fifth/early sixth century AD. In contrast to the well-known influx of thousands of Roman coins into India, the result of trade relations between India and the Roman world, only very few coins were found in Southeast Asia. The discussion will...
For the past century scholars have been attributing the production of a huge issue of gorgoneion drachms with geometric reverse, circa 3.8g, to the mint at Parion in Mysia. Yet neither hoards nor single specimens have ever been found there.
A fresh look at these coins, including a new die study, reveals unusual methods of production. The iconography of this coinage will be compared with other...
Under Gordian III, Soli-Pompeiopolis in Cilicia made coins inscribed with ΑϚ, interpreted as coins of 6 assaria. However, the earlier coins for Alexander and Maximinus are sometimes inscribed ΒϚ, whose interpretation has long remained a puzzle. The same letters ΑϚ and ΒϚ also occur on some fairly small coins of Sidon during the first century AD.
Clearly ΑϚ and ΒϚ cannot then be value marks....
This study analyzes the diversity of paper money circulation in early modern Japan invoking the socio-economic background that created a competitive situation among paper money. In early modern Japan, many kinds of paper currency with various characteristics appeared. There was domain paper currency issued by feudal lords, private currency issued by wealthy merchants, and community-based...
It is generally agreed that, in Phrygia, cities began to produce bronze coinages during the 2nd century BC, probably influenced by the bronze coins first minted there by Alexander the Great and his successors. The city of Acmonea followed this pattern and struck three bronze denominations. It is hard to date the beginning of their minting precisely. However, their typology clearly indicates a...
Whether found in a purse attached at the belt or resting on different parts of the body, coins found in graves suggest rites and customs associated with burial. Like the clothing of the deceased, are coins a mark of social status? Local coins have been found alongside more exotic issues, what can we deduce from this? Did foreigners bury their own in the diocese of Lausanne, did the members of...
The first part of this presentation will provide a short review of activities in the framework of the initiative "Fontes Inediti Numismaticae Antiquae" (FINA) since the 2015 International Numismatic Congress in Taormina: a specific focus will be on research projects on numismatic correspondence of the 18th century, as well as on the development of the FINA database now available online...
Compared to studies that already have tackled this topic, but only for a specific coinage or period, our sample of coins (more than 150 specimens from around the Mediterranean Sea and struck between 5th c. BC and 3rd c. AD) adds to our understanding of different coin manufacturing processes on a large geographical and chronological scale. These data will help to refine the quantification of...
The idea of monetization has had a long and successful standing in Scandinavian scholarship. It has been a successful concept for studying the development of medieval economies and the introduction of coinage. At the same time, the significance of towns, merchants and other specialists in monetization has barely been touched upon and discussed. According to Aristotle money is a precondition...
After the "unusual" death of Antinous in the Nile (October 130 A.D.), Hadrian founded in the proximity of the accident the city of Antinoë (Antinoopolis) with a temple dedicated to the deified young favourite, rituals in his memory, an organised cult for his worship and so on. The same period sees the appearance of lead tesserae with many representations similar to those placed on Alexandrian...
In Viking-Age Scandinavia, traditional economic practices, using foreign coins and silver primarily as bullion, started evolving into monetary markets around the year 1000. The process was slow and uneven, but it is clear that it unfolded in a mutual understanding between the neighbouring countries. Initially, the first Scandinavian coinages were all imitative, gradually developing into local...
Traces of working on cast flans for bronze coins were observed at first on Ptolemaic issues of the 3rd – 1st century BC. The traces consist of a centering mark and concentric grooves.
During the late 2nd and the 1st century BC irregular straight grooves appeared on the copper alloy coins of the Pontic Kingdom. Based on experiments made by the authors and other characteristics they were...
Jacopo Strada (c. 1515 – 1588) created two monumental numismatic corpora in the 16th century: Firstly, an originally 30-volume corpus of coin drawings of the Roman emperors until the 16th century with over 8,500 drawings, the Magnum ac Novum Opus; now in the Forschungsbibliothek Gotha. Secondly, an eleven-volume work with the first systematic coin descriptions, the A.A.A. NumismatΩn Antiquorum...
The Alexandrian coinage of Commodus (AD 175-192) is dominated by billon tetradrachms with the head or bust of the Emperor mainly accompanied by the legend Μ(ΑΡΚΟΣ) Α(VΡΗΛΙΟΣ) ΚΟ(ΜΜΟΔΟΣ) ΑΝΤΩ(ΝΙΝΟΣ) CΕΒ(ΑΣΤΟΣ) ΕV(CΕΒΗΣ). This paper discusses a die study of 2,189 coins which shed light on the output of the Egyptian mint of that period. The metrological and iconographic studies led to a revision...
In September 2017, an excavation survey at Cluny Abbey (France, Saône-et-Loire) led to the discovery of an exceptional hoard hidden in the 12th century. Composed of silver and gold artefacts, it includes more than 2160 deniers and obols minted in France (mostly in the name of the Cluny Abbey), 21 Almoravid dinars minted in the Western Islamic World (Spain and Morocco), a gold ring with a Roman...
Tisna, one of the cities in the ancient region of Aeolis in Asia Minor, lies today within the borders of Aliağa district of İzmir province. Located on the Güzelhisar Valley, between Myrina and Aigai, the city is located on Sarıkale Tepe, 350 m at its highest point. The numismatic data obtained from the regular archaeological surveys conducted since 2018 in Sarıkale, on Kocakale Hill and its...
Caunus, the easternmost city of Caria, on the border with Lycia, began its minting activity in the early 5th century BC. On the obverse, the coins carry a female winged figure with outstretched hands in a kneeling-running position with two volutes on her head. On the coins of the late 5th century BC, she holds a caduceus and a wreath. Little attention has been paid to the identification of...
The popular image of the medieval peasant is that he or she did not use coins. Nevertheless, written sources show that rents and taxes were paid by the common people in cash, alongside payments made in kind. Finds from rural church floors show that they had coins in the church. But what about everyday life? Until a generation ago, not much evidence was available, but now metal detector finds...
Excavations of St. Michael church in Heitenried (Fribourg, Switzerland) brought in 440 coins and 32 religious medals.
Numerous graves were dug around and inside the church. One question that arises is whether a link can be established between the large quantity of small coins and the presence of numerous burials of perinatal deaths (respite sanctuary?). Indeed, most of the coins are small...
Marea is an archaeological site approximately 40 km west of Alexandria, on the southern shore of Lake Mareotis. The 'Golden Age' of Marea was in the Byzantine period, related to the development of the Christian pilgrimage centre in Abu Mena, nearby. Probably in the 5th c. a large city with an impressive layout was built in Marea, a convenient transfer point for travellers between Alexandria...
The Florentine painter, Domenico Cresti detto il Passignano (1559-1638) formed a collection of 112 gold and 700-800 silver Roman coins. We know about it from a series of letters, written in 1647-50, when Passignano’s heirs tried to sell the collection to the young Nicolaas Heinsius. Heinsius wanted only the silver coins, however, and the gold specimens were offered, via Johannes Smetius in...
The literature on the use of early minting presses is highly scattered. The basis for the most recent overview in English is selective (Cooper, 1988), and omits many sources in German. This omission is serious, as minting presses were mainly developed in German-speaking regions. Many of these are included in an overview in German (Meding, 2016), yet this book does not cover the Baltic area....
In the 4th century BC, a large number of silver fractions were issued in southern Asia Minor to meet an apparently growing demand for small change in the region. Among them are obols from the Lycaonian hinterland, which can be attributed to the mint of Laranda (today Karaman). These coins have a specific reverse motif in common: the forepart of a wolf. The most frequent obverse type shows...
The numismatic collection of the Zane family has many extraordinary features in the panorama of 17th and 18th century Venetian collecting. Formed in the last decades of the seventeenth century and comprising only a few hundred antique gold coins, it seems to have been created almost by chance from local finds and preserved by three generations of Zane family members essentially as a means of...
The Egyptian Museum of Cairo holds a very large numismatic collection of which a substantial part are gold coins, mainly from the bequest of King Farouk’s collection. Two small groups of coins stand apart, acquired through customs seizure, one of them in Gaza. The assemblage consists of gold solidi of the reigns of Valentinian I and Valens. One group of 25 coins are mostly Restitutor...
This paper aims to provide a broader understanding of money, its role and value as a material object in Renaissance culture. By recounting the material history of a specific artefact, the fifteenth-century Friulian ‘bell of Dante’ decorated with a tercet from Dante Alighieri’s Paradiso and fourteen impressions of gold and silver Italian coins, not only will it offer new insights into a...
The term monetization has been the subject of repeated discussions in recent decades in the fields of Scandinavian numismatics, archeology and history. Its very broad definition has often been a cause of concern. In my recently completed Ph.D. dissertation, Coin and power, the monetization of Denmark 1074-1241, I have carried out my analyses based on the notion of monetization as a process...
The Ottoman Era was a period of permanent changes. However many wars afflicted the Hungarian Kingdom, its economic system could still develop, even if it took more time than expected. The Hungarian monetary system faced a huge problem, which was the lack of smaller denominations. The Habsburg rulers tried to integrate and standardize different economic and monetary systems found within their...
The presentation illustrates the numismatic activity of the Venetian collector Apostolo Zeno (1668-1750), on the basis of hitherto unpublished sources. A short introduction of the documentary material at our disposal is followed by the discussion of two aspects of Zeno’s numismatic collecting: the catalogues of his coins written by Zeno himself, today kept at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana...
The federal Achaean coinage of the Hellenistic period was produced in a civic framework, in silver of poorer quality than that of the coins of central Greece and the Aetolian Koinon. New elements of the monetary history of the Aetolian Koinon will be presented. The results of LA-ICP-MS elemental analyses of Achaian and Aeolian coins in the Bibliothèque nationale de France will be compared with...
First results of my PhD project which deals with the circulation of Roman Republican coins in the Imperial period (c. 30 BC – AD 300) will be presented. My study is based on a comparative analysis of the structure of coin hoards from the Roman Empire. The information contained in these hoards is crucial for our understanding of the mechanisms of coin supply, coin circulation and especially the...
In 1747, the Augustinian monastery of St. Florian in Upper Austria acquired the coin collection of the Venetian scholar and court poet at the Imperial court in Vienna, Apostolo Zeno necessitating the ordering and cataloguing of this collection of about 12,000 coins. Over the years, several canons regular were appointed as custodians of the collection. In addition, numismatists from the...
Research in the twentieth century on the Jewish coins of the Hellenistic–Early Roman periods provided a consensus on the historical identities of the Jewish minting authorities, many named only in Hebrew on the coins. More recent efforts have focused on determining the seriation of the types within each ruler’s tenure and fine-tuning their absolute dates. This has been done for the coins of...
The first Norwegian coins were issued since the middle of the 11th century. Around 1100 the coins were gradually reduced in size, until they became the smallest bracteates in Medieval Europe. These bracteates were anonymous, making attribution to an issuer difficult. The output of coinage shows that the bracteates, if in circulation, could have been accessible to a large part of the...
Over the course of several decades between the middle of the 16th and the start of the 17th century, several types of Swiss silver coins became a very important part of the money circulation in Bohemia. The influx of Swiss coins into this territory was considered by the then economists and politicians of the day as one of the reasons for the rapidly rising prices. However, the real reasons...
Archaeologists and historians use ancient coins as one of the most important sources of knowledge for interpreting the past. Through the study of coins, we can obtain valuable information about the culture of that time since most coins can be easily dated. This is partly because, unlike most other ancient artifacts, they are often stamped with text and images of rulers from a specific period...
The 12th century sees the beginning of the Swedish colonisation towards the east which ultimately caused the area of present-day Finland an integral part of the Swedish kingdom and Christian world. The process of monetisation was essential for the economic colonisation of the territory referred to in Swedish as Österlanden (Easternlands). Today coins are the most tangible evidence for the...
Studies on the monetary circulation of Ancient Armenia have been scarce until today. This paper addresses the state of research by putting forward initial insights into the monetary circulation of the Greater Armenian Kingdomthrough the analysis of hoards dated from the 1st century BCE to 428 CE. Located at the limits of the Roman Empire and on the edges of the Parthian Empire, the Greater...
The subject of the paper will be the monetary circulation in Silesia in the period after the great monetary reform (1623) of Ferdinand II, aimed at ending the great inflation (Kipper und Wipperzeit), which affected monetary units in the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Bohemia, Silesia included. This study looks into the monetary situation on the market during the Thirty Years’ War and ten...
The paper presents the research on the collecting, antiquarian and scholarly activities of Philipp von Stosch (1691-1757) related to engraved gems made on the basis of the unknown pictorial (drawings) and archival sources discovered in the Princes Czartoryski Museum in Krakow, the Vatican Library and private collections. Stosch's large commissions of drawings of intaglios and cameos are...
Alongside silver and gold, copper is the third typical minting metal, an integral part of many of the coinage systems of Greek and Roman antiquity. In medieval Europe, however, silver currency prevailed, supplemented by gold from the 13th century onwards; copper served as an additive to the silver alloy, which could lead to crises when misused. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, copper...
Jan Chrzciciel Albertrandi (1737-1808) was librarian and antiquarian at the service of Stanisław II August Poniatowski, King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Three letters by Albertrandi to Joseph Eckhel are kept in Vienna. They were written between July and October 1778, when Albertrandi was in Rome for the second time.
During a major archaeological excavation in The Hague (Netherlands), the remains of a rural settlement from the Roman period were unearthed. The finds from this settlement near Forum Hadriani, capital of the Civitas Cananefatium, were rich by Dutch standards. One of the finds was a hoard consisting of 107 denarii (period Nero – Marcus Aurelius), six silver bracelets, a silver-plated fibula and...
My investigation into the gold coinages of the two first Ptolemies, the quadriga stater and the trichryson (with its division, the tenth), has brought to light several points of interest. Struck under Ptolemy I Soter (and in the first part of Ptolemy II Philadelphus’ reign for trichrysa), these gold coins follow the development of the Ptolemaic coinage: the progressive abandonment of the Attic...
During the last decades the term 'monetisation' has increasingly been used in Scandinavian studies on coinage, money and its use, and economy in the Middle Ages. And yet, the term remains somewhat obscure, its definition largely idiosyncratic . In this paper I explore the question of 'when was monetisation achieved?'. The answer to the question may differ considerably depending on the...
This paper combines agent-based modelling with coin-level data from The Coin Hoards of the Roman Empire Project, presenting early findings of doctoral work on coin circulation during the third and fourth centuries AD.
Computational methodological approaches are still in their relative infancy within Roman numismatics yet are being increasingly employed within the field. Leveraging the...
Successively attributed to mints belonging to the Black Sea Greek cities of Olbia, Istrianon Limen and Istros, the so-called ‘wheel coins’ are considered the earliest copper alloy issues of the latter city. The dating, metrology and function of these cast coins have been studies on more than one occasion since the early 19th century. The fact that these coins must have been produced in very...
Bengal, a provincial kingdom of medieval India flourishing since early 13th century had a significant and consistent coinage of its governors and sultans from the very beginning of the Sultanate. A comparative study of this coinage reveals marked influence from the coinage of Seljuq Sultans of Rum (Anatolia) confirmed by the use from the beginning of the horse rider motif, the legend pattern...
In 1495, Gribshunden, the flagship of King John of Denmark and Norway, burned and sank in the Baltic Sea en route to a political summit in Sweden. Recent archaeological excavation of the shipwreck produced a cemented lump identified using microscale X-ray computed tomography (µCT) as the remains of a purse containing 100+ silver coins. This purse is uniquely informative for several reasons....
Coins are money but money is not limited to coins. If we disregard this fact, research in monetarisation seems inextricably linked to investigating the degree of coin use in societies. This paper suggests the introduction of a non-minted currency in the Baltic Sea region at the turn of the first millennium. Based on evidence of the Bornholm (Denmark) Viking hoards it explores whether this...
The historiographic tradition of ninth and tenth century Eastern European economic flows used to see the Dnieper and the Volga routes as the chief sources of Islamic silver. This is supported by the wealth of coin finds deriving from the extensive academic focus on this particular area while alternate routes were not accorded their due attention. However, unpublished archived archaeological...
After the fall of the November Uprising many Poles were forced to leave the Kingdom of Poland, going into exile - mainly to France – in a movement known as the Great Emigration. In exile Poles formed several political groups engaging in wide-scale political and propaganda activity. Medals must be included among the means used to advance the Polish cause and keep the national spirit alive. They...
The paper will discuss two very distinct groups of imitative dirhams found in Middle Viking-age coin hoards in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. The first group is datable to c.890-900 AD. The second group is datable to c. 950-960 AD. Both groups differ significantly in the design and techniques from earlier and contemporary imitative coinages of Khazaria and Volga Bulgaria, and are seen to...
