RACOM News & Events

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.

Lucia Carbone, Andrew M. Burnett Associate Curator for Roman Coins at the American Numismatic Society summarizes 2 Day Rome and the Coinages of the Mediterranean (200 BCE–64 CE) Conference 17/18th April 2023 at the British School at Rome, Rome, Italy.

Day One: Rome and the Coinages of the Mediterranean (200 BCE–64 CE) Conference: Part I - American Numismatic Society

Day Two: Rome and the Coinages of the Mediterranean (200 BCE–64 CE) Conference, Part 2 - American Numismatic Society

The RACOM Project is now in its fourth year! As the analytical section of the project draws to a close, the team are hosting a two-day international conference on ‘Rome and the Coinages of the Mediterranean, 150 BCE - 64 CE, with over 20 invited speakers, composed of team members, postdocs, members of our advisory panel and other experts in the field, who are collaborating with the team on interpreting the new data.
The conference is being held at the British School at Rome, with which the University of Warwick has strong links. Placing it in Rome, ITALY, raises the international profile of the project and pays homage to the city from which many of the coinages studied originated.
The full Programme is outlined HERE