Speaker
George Watson
(Swansea University )
Description
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 types were conceived of, communicated, and utilised. Drawing on examples from the Roman provincial and Roman imperial coinages, the paper will seek to get inside the minting process and offer an emic perspective on the division of designs into coherent units in the ancient world.
Primary author
George Watson
(Swansea University )
