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Books > Arts & Architecture > Antiques & collectables > Coins, banknotes, medals, seals, numismatics
The premier form of Roman money since the time of the Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.), coins were vital to the success of Roman state finances, taxation, markets, and commerce beyond the frontiers. Yet until now, the economic and social history of Rome has been written independently of numismatic studies, which detail such technical information as weight standards, mint output, hoards, and finds at archaeological sites. In "Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 B.C. to A.D. 700, " noted classicist and numismatist Kenneth W. Harl brings together these two fields in the first comprehensive history of how Roman coins were minted and used. Drawing on literary and documentary sources as well as on current methods of metallurgical study and statistical analysis of coins from archaeological sites, Harl presents a sweeping overview of a system of coinage in use for more than a millennium. Challenging much recent scholarship, he emphasizes the important role played by coins in the overseas expansion of the Roman Republic during the second century B.C., in imperial inflationary policies during the third and fourth centuries A.D., and in the dissolution of the Roman Mediterranean order in the seventh century A.D. He also offers the first region-by-region analysis of prices and wages throughout Roman history with reference to the changing buying power of the major circulating denominations. And he shows how the seldom-studied provincial, civic, and imitative coinages were in fact important components of Roman currency. Richly illustrated with photographic reproductions of nearly three hundred specimens, "Coinage in the Roman Economy" offers a significant contribution to Roman economic history. It will be of interest to scholars and students of classical antiquity and the Middle Ages, as well as to professional and amateur numismatists.
The Roman monetary system was highly complex. It involved official Roman coins in both silver and bronze, which some provinces produced while others imported them from mints in Rome and elsewhere, as well as, in the East, a range of civic coinages. This is a comprehensive study of the workings of the system in the Eastern provinces from the Augustan period to the third century AD, when the Roman Empire suffered a monetary and economic crisis. The Eastern provinces exemplify the full complexity of the system, but comparisons are made with evidence from the Western provinces as well as with appropriate case studies from other historical times and places. The book will be essential for all Roman historians and numismatists and of interest to a broader range of historians of economics and finance.
Examines the styles and contexts of portrait statues produced during one of the most dynamic eras of Western art, the early Hellenistic age. Often seen as the beginning of the Western tradition in portraiture, this historical period is here subjected to a rigorous interdisciplinary analysis. Using a variety of methodologies from a wide range of fields - anthropology, numismatics, epigraphy, archaeology, history, and literary criticism - an international team of experts investigates the problems of origins, patronage, setting, and meanings that have consistently marked this fascinating body of ancient material culture.
This groundbreaking study of coinage in early medieval England is the first to take account of the very significant additions to the corpus of southern English coins discovered in recent years and to situate this evidence within the wider historical context of Anglo-Saxon England and its continental neighbours. Its nine chapters integrate historical and numismatic research to explore who made early medieval coinage, who used it and why. The currency emerges as a significant resource accessible across society and, through analysis of its production, circulation and use, the author shows that control over coinage could be a major asset. This control was guided as much by ideology as by economics and embraced several levels of power, from kings down to individual craftsmen. Thematic in approach, this innovative book offers an engaging, wide-ranging account of Anglo-Saxon coinage as a unique and revealing gauge for the interaction of society, economy and government.
A key figure in the history of Benares (Varanasi), James Prinsep (1799 1840) was instrumental in expanding Western knowledge of Indian civilisation. After briefly studying under Pugin, he became an assay master in Calcutta in 1819, and soon moved to Benares. His talents were many, and within a few years he had completed a detailed map of the city, designed a new mint, engineered a system to improve sanitation and begun studying the inscriptions and coins that helped him to decipher two ancient scripts and to establish the dates of Indian dynasties. Collected in 1858 and edited by the numismatist Edward Thomas (1813 86), these essays are generously illustrated, often in Prinsep's hand, and display the enormous breadth of his knowledge. Volume 1 includes a short biography by his brother, along with articles on coins, relics and archaeological discoveries.
A key figure in the history of Benares (Varanasi), James Prinsep (1799 1840) was instrumental in expanding Western knowledge of Indian civilisation. After briefly studying under Pugin, he became an assay master in Calcutta in 1819, and soon moved to Benares. His talents were many, and within a few years he had completed a detailed map of the city, designed a new mint, engineered a system to improve sanitation and begun studying the inscriptions and coins that helped him to decipher two ancient scripts and to establish the dates of Indian dynasties. Collected in 1858 and edited by the numismatist Edward Thomas (1813 86), these essays are generously illustrated, often in Prinsep's hand, and display the enormous breadth of his knowledge. Volume 2 includes essays on coins and philology, with the extensive tables and lists of historical weights and measures, and explanations of Indian chronology.
For an august and important institution of the realm, whose activities concern every citizen so constantly and continuously, is it not surprising how little every citizen knows of the London Mint in detail? In this 1953 book its story up until the 1950s is told with unimpeachable authority by Sir John Craig, former Deputy Master and Comptroller of the Royal Mint and Engraver of the King's Seals. Any reader may follow the chronology of the Mint, from the many crude workshops of the early days to the central, nationally recognised organisation with statutory safeguards that it has become. Here they may read of those who influenced the growth and policy of the Mint, watch the development of monetary theory, as well as the changes in technical processes of coin making, and the gradual evolution of statutory control. The whole work is illustrated from the archives of the Mint.
The first two chapters provide a resume of how the coinage of the central Roman state changed, developed and stumbled. In Britain most coins in museums and collections come from hoards (coins deposited in a group) or from coins found singly during excavation or walking over fields. These two classes are very different and are examined separately. The author then looks at how coins were used in Roman Britain, and finally explains the differences between Britain and the rest of the Roman Empire. Despite the need for quantitative as well as well as qualitative analysis, Richard Reece has - for the benefit of those who are understandably put off by reams of statistics - banished all numbers and numerical methods to a single short Appendix. The result is a book sparkling with Dr Reece's characteristically incisive insights that can be appreciated by anyone interested in Britain's past.
Henry T. Prinsep (1792-1878) was the son of a prominent East India Company servant, and like his father, Prinsep also spent much of his life in the East. He left Britain for Calcutta in 1809, at the age of seventeen, and stayed in India, working in a variety of roles, until his retirement in 1843. His brother James also lived in India and was a prominent scholar. Upon the latter's death in 1840, Prinsep found himself in possession of his brother's coin collection and a notebook, which became the basis of this work, published in 1844. Prinsep explains that the coins - which have inscriptions in both Greek and unknown languages - are valuable evidence of Alexander the Great's famous expedition to the east in the fourth century BCE. Prinsep also includes extensive illustrations of the coins, offering a fascinating view of an important archaeological discovery.
This volume of Medieval European Coinage deals with the coinage of south Italy, Sicily and Sardinia between the mid-tenth century, when Part I ended, and the reign of Ferdinand the Catholic, on the threshold of the modern era. It thus covers very different coinages of the immediate pre-Norman period and those of the Norman, Hohenstaufen, Angevin and Aragonese dynasties, which in turn ruled part or the whole of the Mezzogiorno. The complex background to the history of this region makes its coinages among the most interesting of medieval Europe. They have rarely been studied together or in a single volume, and the work, which makes extensive use of written evidence and coin finds, will take its place as the standard work of reference for the foreseeable future.
Coins are one of the most abundant sources for our study of the past, yet their value as historical evidence is relatively neglected because of a general lack of knowledge of numismatic techniques. This volume of essays, offered by a circle of friends, colleagues and pupils working in Britain, Europe and North America, is intended to pay tribute to Philip Grierson's unique contribution to the study of numismatic method. A medievalist by training, through his wide-ranging interests in coins and coinage Grierson has commanded the respect of historians and numismatists of all periods for the originality and good sense of his prolific scholarship. More than any other living scholar, he has been responsible for making available an understanding of numismatic expertise to specialist and non-specialist audiences.
Examines the styles and contexts of portrait statues produced during one of the most dynamic eras of Western art, the early Hellenistic age. Often seen as the beginning of the Western tradition in portraiture, this historical period is here subjected to a rigorous interdisciplinary analysis. Using a variety of methodologies from a wide range of fields - anthropology, numismatics, epigraphy, archaeology, history, and literary criticism - an international team of experts investigates the problems of origins, patronage, setting, and meanings that have consistently marked this fascinating body of ancient material culture.
This, the first volume of Medieval European Coinage, surveys the coinage of Western Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire in the West in the fifth century to the emergence of recognizable 'national' political units in the tenth. It starts with the Vandals, Visigoths, Burgundians and other Germanic invaders of the Empire, whose coins were modelled on contemporary issues of the Western or Eastern emperors. The coinage of the Franks is followed from early Merovingian times through to the establishment and subsequent fragmentation of the Carolingian empire. Italy is represented by the coinages of the Ostrogoths, Lombards, Carolingians and popes down to the Ottoman conquest in the mid-tenth century. The coinage of the Anglo-Saxons is traced from the introduction of minting in the early seventh century to the emergence of a united kingdom during the first half of the tenth century, including the aberrant coinages of Northumbria and the Anglo-Viking coinages of the Danelaw.
Sardis, capital city of the Lydian and Persian kings, stronghold of the Seleukid kings, metropolis of Roman Asia, and episcopal see in the Byzantine period, has been the focus of archaeological research since the early 1900s. This monograph focuses on the over 8,000 coins minted in the Lydian, Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods that were excavated between 1973 and 2013 in the Harvard-Cornell Expedition. The book places coins within eastern Mediterranean historical, cultural, and economic contexts, in order to better understand the monetized economy of Sardis. It adds important archaeological context to shed light on the uses of coins and the nature of the deposits, with attention paid to the problems of monetary circulation and chronological development of the deposits, especially in the Late Roman period. Statistical analyses, including a new method of analyzing the deposits, help define the nature and chronological horizons of the strata. A catalog of the coins concludes the main body of the study, followed by appendices on countermarks, monograms, and statistical analyses.
So You are hearing alarm bells ringing in the state of Tennessee
Spanning six centuries and seven countries, the Middeldorf Collection assembled by the late eminent art historian Ulrich Middeldorf provides an extraordinary overview of major personalities and of political, social, cultural, and religious events as depicted in more than 350 medals and plaquettes. Illustrated in full color and accompanied by extensive documentation are commemorations of kings, queens, emperors, poets, composers, physicians, artists, inventors, popes, cardinals, and bishops. Papal annual and jubilee medals and delightful French reliefs from the Belle Epoque complement medals from the eras of Louis XIV and XV, Napoleon, and the Risorgimento. Highlights of the collection are Italian medals from the 17th century and later periods that until recently have received little scholarly attention."
A brief overview of money's historical relationship to the commodities of gold and silver, including the author's prophetic view of a new stage in monetary technique wherein monetary status and pure commodity value may be reciprocally beneficial and ultimately advantageous to the economy at large.
Don't make the mistake of thinking only millionaires or swash-buckling maverick archaeologists can own a National Treasure. A National Treasure can simply be an artifact that played a significant role in the founding and growth our nation. Our nation's first coins are such treasures.
This volume of Medieval European Coinage is the first English-language survey to bring the latest research on the coinage of Spain and Portugal c.1000-1500 to an international audience. A major work of reference by leading numismatic experts, the volume provides an authoritative and up-to-date account of the coinages of Aragon, Catalonia, Castile, Leon, Navarre and Portugal, which have rarely been studied together. It considers how money circulated throughout the peninsula, offering new syntheses of the monetary history of the individual kingdoms and includes an extensive catalogue of the Aragonese, Castilian, Catalan, Leonese, Navarrese and Portuguese coins in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum. This major contribution to the field will be a valuable point of reference for the study of medieval history, numismatics and archaeology.
This volume continues documenting the well-known excavations at Morgantina, a Greek town in central Sicily, in a presentation of the largest body of coins ever unearthed at an Italian site and published as a group. The excavations, conducted by Princeton University, The University of Illinois, and The University of Virginia between 1955 and 1981, produced nearly 10,000 identifiable coins--most of them at of Sicilian Greek and Roman issues, struck before the end of the first century B.C. The numismatic evidence not only made possible the initial identification fo the side as Morgantina, but has subsequently opened the way to reconstructing the history of early Roman Republican coinage and the bronze coinage of Greek Sicily. The catalogue presents a full list of the coins found at Morgantina through the 1981 season, with discussion of significant issues and illustrations of 679 specimens. A completed corpus and study of the coins struck at Morgantina is also included. Theodore V. Buttrey is Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan. Kenan T. Erim is Professor of Classical Archaeology at New York University. Thomas. D. Groves is a graduate student in the Department of Classical Archaeology at Princeton University. R. Ross Holloway is Professor of Classical Archaeology at Brown University. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
The Roman coins found within the area of modern Denmark form the empirical basis of the present study. It is my intention to present and discuss the coins as archaeological artefacts. The provenance and context of the individual coin are regarded as parameters of equal importance for the interpretation of the find as the numismatic evidence inherent in the coin. Initially more weight is put on answering the "how, when and why" regarding the Roman coins in the local context and the import of the Roman coins into the Danish Iron Age cultures, than the how, when and why regarding the export of the coins from the Roman Empire. The latter questions will mostly be touched on in the last part of the book, where I will attempt to compare the evidence from Denmark with finds from other parts of Barbaricum.
This illustrated handbook presents a concise history of the development of the coinage of the early Arab caliphate in the seventh century, tracing its transition from coins that closely resembled Byzantine issues with imperial images to purely aniconic specimens with inscriptions in Arabic. This so-called "Arab-Byzantine series" sheds light on a pivotal period in the history of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, as formerly Byzantine provinces were slowly Arabicized and Islamicized following the Arab conquests of the 630s and 640s. The historical introduction, which includes descriptions of all the basic types, is followed by a summary catalogue of the recently acquired collection of Arab-Byzantine coins at Dumbarton Oaks.
THE ULTIMATE A-TO-Z GUIDE REVEALING EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW TO BECOME A METAL DETECTING EXPERT Nothing is as thrilling as finding cool (and often valuable) stuff right under your feet. So grab this guide and get ready to dig up more and more finds. Packed with helpful information on making your search successful and exciting, The Metal Detecting Bible serves up step-by-step instructions, illustrations, and useful photos that can turn you into a professional treasure hunter. From quick-start tips for novices to insider secrets for the most experienced hobbyists, this hands-on guide is the ultimate resource on all aspects of metal detecting. * Choose the best metal detector * Learn where to search and why * Practice appropriate swing techniques * Integrate advanced GPS technology *Scout out beaches, parks and historic sites * Gain permission to hunt on private property *Identify antique coins, relics and jewelry * Use handy target recovery tools * Clean and safely preserve your finds * Sell your finds for a profit |
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