RACOM News & Events
Coinage & Imperialism Exhibition
Silver coinage formed the backbone of state finance in Classical antiquity. The fineness and quality of a coinage is often taken by historians to be a comment on the fiscal health of the issuing state. Until recently little was known about fineness and composition. The Silver coins currently on display in the Antiquities Cabinet, on the second floor of the Faculty of Arts Building (FAB), belong to the University of Warwick's collection and most form part of the European Research Council funded, Rome and the coinages of the Mediterranean, 200 BCE - 64 CE (RACOM) Project.
It's worth a look!
Measuring debasement in antiquity
Professor Kevin Butcher presented at the Third International Congress on the History of Money and Numismatics in the Mediterranean World in Antalya, Turkey 1st to 4th April 2024. The aim of the congress, limited to the Mediterranean region, was to bring together distinguished scholars working on the history of money and numismatics related to the Mediterranean world, to share original research findings, draw attention to the cultural and economic diversity that has shaped the Mediterranean from the Lydians to Islamic states, as well as highlight the monetary and economic history of Anatolia.
Ancient monetary policy could be seriously aggressive!
How plundered Gaulish silver ended up in Roman coins (economist.com)
AS big as their empire was, the Romans never reached Greenland. Yet that remote island has become the place to go for those interested in ancient economic history. Greenland’s ice sheets preserve traces of atmospheric lead emitted in Europe and north Africa as part of the silver-making process. Since silver coins were ubiquitous in antiquity, fluctuations in lead levels serve as a proxy for the ups and downs of the ancient money supply.
Sometimes, though, such evidence throws up contradictions. In a paper published in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences Jonathan Wood, an archaeologist at the University of Liverpool and his colleagues, offer an explanation. They suggest the Romans turned to recycling, of both their own silver, and—at the point of a pilum—other people’s.