Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Philip Grierson's contribution to numismatics
- A bibliography of the writings of Philip Grierson
- Introduction
- 1 Thoughts on the beginnings of coinage
- 2 The life of obverse dies in the Hellenistic period
- 3 Roman coinage of the Cyrenaica, first century bc to first century ad
- 4 Roman imperial coin types and the formation of public opinion
- 5 Coin hoards and Roman coinage of the third century AD
- 6 Belgian finds of late fourth-century Roman bronze
- 7 The re-use of obsolete coins: the case of Roman imperial bronzes revived in the late fifth century
- 8 Interpreting the alloy of the Merovingian silver coinagae
- 9 Carolingian gold coins from the Ilanz hoard
- 10 The novi denarii and forgery in the ninth century
- 11 On the rejection of good coin in Carolingian Europe
- 12 Ælfred the Great's abandonment of the concept of periodic recoinage
- 13 King or Queen? An eleventh-century pfennig of Duisburg
- 14 Personal names on Norman coins of the eleventh century: an hypothesis
- 15 The Gornoslav hoard, the Emperor Frederick I, and the Monastery of Bachkovo
- 16 Coinages of Barcelona (1209 to 1222): the documentary evidence
- 17 Finds of English medieval coins in Schleswig-Holstein
- 18 Privy-marking and the trial of the pyx
- 19 Judicial documents relating to coin forgery
- 20 Mint organisation in the Burgundian Netherlands in the fifteenth century
- 21 Coinage in Andrew Halyburton's Ledger
- 22 Imitation in later medieval coinage: the influence of Scottish types abroad
- 23 Barter in fifteenth-century Genoa
- Index
5 - Coin hoards and Roman coinage of the third century AD
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Philip Grierson's contribution to numismatics
- A bibliography of the writings of Philip Grierson
- Introduction
- 1 Thoughts on the beginnings of coinage
- 2 The life of obverse dies in the Hellenistic period
- 3 Roman coinage of the Cyrenaica, first century bc to first century ad
- 4 Roman imperial coin types and the formation of public opinion
- 5 Coin hoards and Roman coinage of the third century AD
- 6 Belgian finds of late fourth-century Roman bronze
- 7 The re-use of obsolete coins: the case of Roman imperial bronzes revived in the late fifth century
- 8 Interpreting the alloy of the Merovingian silver coinagae
- 9 Carolingian gold coins from the Ilanz hoard
- 10 The novi denarii and forgery in the ninth century
- 11 On the rejection of good coin in Carolingian Europe
- 12 Ælfred the Great's abandonment of the concept of periodic recoinage
- 13 King or Queen? An eleventh-century pfennig of Duisburg
- 14 Personal names on Norman coins of the eleventh century: an hypothesis
- 15 The Gornoslav hoard, the Emperor Frederick I, and the Monastery of Bachkovo
- 16 Coinages of Barcelona (1209 to 1222): the documentary evidence
- 17 Finds of English medieval coins in Schleswig-Holstein
- 18 Privy-marking and the trial of the pyx
- 19 Judicial documents relating to coin forgery
- 20 Mint organisation in the Burgundian Netherlands in the fifteenth century
- 21 Coinage in Andrew Halyburton's Ledger
- 22 Imitation in later medieval coinage: the influence of Scottish types abroad
- 23 Barter in fifteenth-century Genoa
- Index
Summary
In his little book Numismatics, in the chapter devoted to coin finds and hoards, Philip Grierson wrote that ‘hoards are for the most part less obviously interesting than coins in collections, since they often consist of hundreds of virtually identical objects…but, quite apart from being the ultimate source of all the coins that one sees in collections, coin finds are the numismatist's most valuable single guide to classification and dating’. This statement is of general application to all series of coins, and to all periods within any given series, but there are some series and periods for which the evidence of coin hoards is more valuable than for others, and for the Roman coinage of the third century AD the evidence of coin hoards is, for a variety of reasons, particularly valuable, and the techniques by which this evidence can be exploited merit consideration.
The ultimate object in the study of any series of coins is to create, from a mass of material, as fully detailed a chronological picture of the coinage as possible, so that evidence of the coinage can make its contribution to the history of the period. In such a re-creation one of the prime sources, that of contemporary historians, is conspicuously lacking in the third century, in contrast with both the earlier and later centuries of the Empire.
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- Information
- Studies in Numismatic MethodPresented to Philip Grierson, pp. 65 - 74Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1983