Speaker
Description
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 been catalogued in a preliminary manner by Richard Harper, the excavation director. For Arab coins he requested the collaboration of two experts in Islamic antiquities, Priscilla Soucek and Muhammad El-Kholi (Damascus National Museum).
With no access to the coins, whose location is currently unknown, Harper’s hand-written forms and Soucek and El-Kholi’s reports must be the corner-stone of my reassessment of the numismatic finds, made within the frames of the publication project coordinated by Anna Leone.
A synthesis of the monetary circulation at Dibsi Faraj in Antiquity and the medieval period will be presented.
