Roman Provincial Coinage Online
Roman coinage provides a major resource for the historian and the archaeologist. A primary requirement is the provision of a standard typology on which both can rely. The Roman Provincial Coinage initiative complements the now complete series of Roman Imperial Coinage, and will result in the provision of a standard treatment of all Roman coinage. The material is relevant to a wide range of taught courses under both Classics and Archaeology, at both a graduate and undergraduate level. It is also a vital resource for the international research community and other interested parties.
The publication of Roman Provincial Coinage vol 1 (44 BC–AD 69) in 1992 marked the start of this international initiative, which will comprise ten volumes in all. Roman Provincial Coinage is published by British Museum Press and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and is under the general editorship of Andrew Burnett (British Museum), Michel Amandry (Bibliothèque nationale de France) and Chris Howgego (Ashmolean Museum). The online publication is based in the Heberden Coin Room of the Ashmolean Museum, which is part of the University of Oxford.
The aim of the project is to produce a standard typology of the provincial coinage of the Roman Empire. Coins are mass-produced objects, so that from the historical point of view it does not make sense to confine consideration to the collection in any one museum. The project is based on the ten most important and accessible collections in the world (the ‘core collections’ — see table), and on all published material. This represents the first systematic treatment of the civic coinage at the height of the Roman empire, and will have great importance for the study of cultural, religious, political, economic, and administrative history at both a local and an imperial level.
The database contains information on 29,825 coin types, based on 129,846 specimens (30,365 of which have images).
Posts
Stumble It!
No comments:
Post a Comment