CLA-HLS 548
Ancient
and Medieval Numismatics
Spring semester 2013
Thursdays, 1:30-4:20
West Seminar Room, RBSC, Firestone Library
The seminar will cover the basic methodology of numismatics and will survey the Western coinage tradition, from its origins through the end of the Middle Ages. Students will research and report on problems involving coinages related to their own areas of specialization. Most of the seminar meetings will be divided into three parts: student presentations, methodological discussion, and a review of a particular historical coinage.
Each participant will select a coin from the University’s collection and use it as the basis for weekly reports related to the methodological issues under discussion. The coins will be selected in consultation with the instructor to relate to the student’s academic specialization and to present interesting problems of attribution, production or circulation. At about the middle of the semester, each student will develop a research project, perhaps based on the coinage he or she has been reporting on, and will discuss methodological strategies with the class. The final three sessions will be devoted to oral presentations of results of the research, and students taking the seminar for credit will be required to turn in a written research paper.
The methodological topics that will be discussed will include mint study, die study, hoard analysis, archaeological inference from coin finds, and scientific and statistical techniques of numismatic analysis. Specific examples of the use of each methodology will be selected to illustrate the interests of the participants and will be analyzed from a historical as well as numismatic perspective.
The
history of ancient and medieval coinage will be surveyed in PowerPoint
presentations by the instructor on the origin of coinage in the Greco-Persian
world; the development of archaic, classical and Hellenistic Greek coinages;
Roman republican, imperial and provincial issues; Byzantine coinage; Islamic
coinage; and the coinage of medieval and renaissance
Syllabus
Week 1, February 7:
Introductions
Bibliography
Week 2: February 14
Student presentations: coin description
Mint and die study
Origins of coinage, classical Greek coinage
Week 3: February 21
Student presentations: mint study and history of scholarship
Hoard study
Hellenistic Greek coinage
Week 4: February 28
Student presentations: hoard report
Archaeology and numismatics
Roman Republican coinage
Week 5: March 7
Student presentations: site find
Metrology
Roman Imperial and Provincial Coinage
Week 6: March 14
Student presentations: documentary analysis
Scientific analysis
Later Roman coinage and early medieval coinage
Week 7: March 28
Student presentations: paper proposals
Economics and numismatics
Later medieval and renaissance coinage
Week 8: April 4
Statistical applications
Byzantine coinage
Week 9: April 11
Case study: the mint of Venice
Islamic Coinage
Week 10: April 18
Student presentations
Medals
Week 11: April 25
Student presentations
Week 12: May 2
Student presentations
Alan M. Stahl
Firestone Library, RBSC
(609) 258-9127