By Tyler Rossi for CoinWeek ….. An interesting group of Roman Republican coins, serrati (saw-edged) denarii have proved to be an enigma for numismatists for hundreds of years. As H. Mattingly states in his seminal 1924 piece on serrati, these Roman coins are completely different than Macedonian, Syrian, and Carthaginian serrati. Firstly, the Roman host […]
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By Oliver Hoover for American Numismatic Society (ANS) …… Everyone loves to find coins in unexpected places. There’s a certain thrill that comes from discovering dropped coins on a city sidewalk or loose change behind the couch cushions. The thrill is even greater when the find is more unusual or esoteric, like a bronze follis […]
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By Tyler Rossi for CoinWeek ….. One of the most basic tasks of a numismatist is the identification of coins. While correctly attributing the denomination, issuing authority, and date are important, determining the mint at which a coin was struck can reveal lots of contextual information. Outside of private issues and small city-states that operate […]
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Seleucus I Nicator, the founder of the Seleucid Empire, never put his own portrait on the empire’s coinage. Why? By Tyler Rossi for CoinWeek ….. Since coins were one of the most effective tools for mass propaganda in the pre-modern world, it quickly became standard practice for a ruler to put their likeness […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. Perhaps one reason for the comparatively small interest in Greek coins in the country is the difficulty of understanding their inscriptions. This difficulty is not as great as might be supposed… (Pennington, 1) MODERN AMERICAN COINS are required by law to include quite a lot of text[1]. For example, […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. The Seleucid empire fell apart as things do – internal failures and others’ successes, inevitability and chance. The epithets of kinglets accumulated, reechoing because the core was hollow… When at last the lots were shaken and the world divided, the kingdom’s west fell to Rome and its east to […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. Part I | Part II Antiochus V & Timarchus When Seleucid king Antiochus IV died unexpectedly in 164 BCE, he left his nine-year-old son in the care of Lysias, a trusted official. As Antiochus V, the boy’s portrait appears on the coinage[1] with the epithet Eupatoros (“son of a […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. Part I Antiochus III When Seleucus III was poisoned by his officers in 223 BCE, his 18-year-old son, Antiochus, inherited an empire that was rapidly falling apart. In a reign of 35 years, Antiochus III tried to emulate the conquests of Alexander, earning the epithet Megas (“the Great”). The […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. MURDEROUS AND TREACHEROUS, the Seleucids, a Greek dynasty who ruled much of the Middle East from 312 to 64 BCE, were a nasty lot. But they had exquisite artistic taste, rather like those brutal Italian Renaissance princes who sponsored sculptors, painters and architects who created sublime masterpieces of enduring […]
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The American Numismatic Society (ANS) is pleased to announce the release of version 2 (v.2) of the web-based research tool: Seleucid Coins Online (SCO). As a component of the National Endowment for the Humanities-funded Hellenistic Royal Coinages (HRC) project, SCO aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the coinages struck by the Seleucid kings between […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz …. It hardly needs repeating here that the gap between ancient and modern sensibilities is unbridgeable. — Caroline Vout (2007)[1] FOR MUCH OF THE YEAR, the Mediterranean climate is hot, and it makes a certain amount of sense for clothing to be optional. Every bit of thread in […]
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National Endowment for the Humanities Funds ANS Hellenistic Royal Coinages Project The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded the American Numismatic Society (ANS) a substantial grant of $262,000 to fund the web-based Hellenistic Royal Coinages (HRC) project. Under the direction of Curator Dr. Peter van Alfen and Director of Data Science Ethan […]
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