Conveners
S15. GREECE 15. DECODING THE MESSAGE: REVIEWING PROPAGANDA, COMMUNICATION AND LOCAL IDENTITIES ON THE COINAGES OF CLASSICAL AND HELLENISTIC CRETE
- Manolis I. Stefanakis (University of Aegean)
Description
Org. and chair Manolis I. Stefanakis
Propaganda, as a means of communicating information, is primarily used to influence an audience, and to further an agenda. It may not be objective and may be presenting facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis or perception since the motives are usually political or religious. Although it has been a popular subject of research both in archaeology and history, its concept is barely researched for coinages of autonomous Greek poleis, and tends to focus rather on Roman (mostly Imperial) coinages. Whenever the subject is touched upon in Greek numismatics, scholars (archaeologists and historians), very often neglect to appropriately address and classify propaganda phenomena with reference to the classifications established by social scientists.
The aim of this session is to review the models of communication and propaganda, as well as all stages and components of the process of propaganda; to re-consider propaganda and communication on the Greek coins to identify the main axes of the monetary propaganda of the classical and Hellenistic era; next, the possibility of targeting propaganda messages encoded on coins struck by various Cretan mints from the 5th to the 1st centuries BC and confirmed by written testimonies. The analysis of the imagery placed on Cretan coins suggests that different types were intended primarily for the inhabitants of other cities, commemorating important traditions, and thus supported locality and ethnicity, and implied supremacy over subordinated cities, as well as economic control of the weaker.
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...
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...
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...
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...
