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The Standing Caliph Coinage
by Tony Goodwin

The Standing Caliph coinage of late Seventh Century Syria was highly unusual in having an image of the Umayyad caliph ‘Abd al-Malik on the obverse. First issued in Jerusalem around 690CE, it was then struck in considerable variety, in both gold and copper, at 19 separate mints. This is the first comprehensive survey of the Standing Caliph coinage and describes images, legends and mint practices in detail. It also includes historical background to show how the coinage fitted in to the caliph’s wide ranging programme of reforms. The book concludes with a catalogue of 450 coins, all of which are illustrated. It is aimed at numismatists, archaeologists and collectors, but should also be of interest to students of early Islamic history and art.

ISBN: 978-1- 909492-63- 9
v +169p, illustrated throughout (Archetype Publications 2018) Pb £36

A copy has been given to the RNS library

Notifications of Society prizes continue this week with the announcement of the Parkes Weber Prize.

The Parkes Weber Prize was instituted in 1954 through the generosity of the late F. Parkes Weber and is under the administration of the Council of the Society.

It is awarded for an original essay of not more than 5,000 words on any subject relating to coins, medals, medallions, tokens or paper money.

In 2018 the RNS Council decided to award the prize to two new voices in the field, whose original contributions addressed distinct numismatic topics with originality and rigour. They are:

George Green, ‘The relationship between the Romans and their gold coinage A.D. 64−A.D. 200’

Charlotte Mann, ‘The circulation of Festival coins struck for the Eleusinian Mysteries’

The Council congratulates both winners and extends its thanks to the expert readers who assisted the Council in evaluating all entries in the context of their particular period and region of focus. Entries are warmly invited for the Parkes Weber Prize 2019, and information submitting work for consideration can be found here.

One of the most pleasurable duties of he RNS is to award a range of prizes, most of them in memory of former members of the Society, in recognition of outstanding work done in service of numismatics. Further information about the Society’s honours and awards can be found here. This year the Society has awarded three prizes (the Lhotka Memorial Prize, the Parkes Weber Prize and the Samir Shamma Prize for Islamic Numismatics), the results of which will be presented in three consecutive posts on this blog over the coming days.

Lhotka Memorial Prize

The Lhotka Memorial Prize was endowed in 1962 by the late Honorary Fellow, Professor J.F. Lhotka (University of Oklahoma), in memory of his father, Dr. J.F. Lhotka.

It is awarded to the author of the book or article in English considered most helpful to the elementary student of numismatics and published in the previous two calendar years. Previous winners can be viewed here.

In 2018 it was decided to award the prize to two authors, whose different but excellent works were judged to make equally valauble contributions to the promotion of numismatic study. These are:

Dario Calomino (2016) Defacing The Past: Damnation and Desecration in Imperial Rome, Spink, in collaboration with the British Museum.

‘Like many rulers, Roman emperors used inscriptions, sculptures and coins to project their authority. But the imperial image could be outraged and subverted for political and religious reasons. The memory of Roman emperors and high-ranking officials could be officially condemned after their death through a process known as ‘damnatio memoriae’, meaning that a person’s memory was attacked and largely erased. This was particularly true if rulers were overthrown or executed. Their names were erased and their portraits defaced. Imperial images were also mutilated and destroyed by Rome’s enemies to contest the imperial authority.’

This volume is available to purchase via Spink and Co. Ltd here.

Peter Thonemann (2016) The Hellenistic World: Using Coins as Sources, Cambridge University Press.

‘Coinage is one of our key sources for the rich and fascinating history of the Hellenistic world (323–31 BC). This book provides students of the period with an up-to-date introduction to Hellenistic gold, silver and bronze coins in their cultural and economic contexts. It also offers new perspectives on four major themes in contemporary Hellenistic history: globalisation, identity, political economy and ideology. With more than 250 illustrations, and written in a lucid and accessible style, this book sheds new light on the diverse and multicultural societies of the Hellenistic world, from Alexander to Augustus. The author assumes no prior knowledge of Hellenistic history, and all Greek and Latin texts are translated throughout.’

This volume is available to view and purchase via Cambridge University Press here.

by R. Darley

We hope that you are enjoying the new RNS blog, including:

• How RNS grants have been used to further numismatic study
• Up-coming RNS public lectures and events
• Updates concerning the Society and our website
• New and forthcoming publications by the RNS, by RNS members or related to academic study more widely

If you would like to offer content for a blog post, to advertise events or publications or to draw attention to talks, exhibitions or collections near you, please contact Rebecca Darley (r.darley@bbk.ac.uk).

Especially as we enter the Spring and summer period, when grants are being spent but reports have not yet come in and applications for the following year are being assessed, and when our lecture schedule enters its final furlong for the year, we would also like to use the Society blog to draw your attention to other numismatic stories on the web. These will, of course, be interspersed with notices more directly connected to the Society. For a wider selection of other numismatic stories from the UK and beyond, please also visit the RNS Facebook page.

The Winchester Cabinet, in the strongroom of the Brotherton Library, linked from ‘A corner of tenth century Europe‘.

This week’s numismatic news comes from the University of Leeds, which over the last three years has been working to make its extensive numismatic collection more widely known and better integrated into teaching in the university. Some of the English material was published as long ago as 1975 by Elizabeth Pirie in the Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles 21 and a short summary of the collection, of around 15,000 items can be found here. Nevertheless, the collection is not yet a part of the Money and Medals database and had not in recent decades been subject to much use. The story of how that has begun to change can be found here and here on the blog A Corner of Tenth Century Europe.

With the help of a Laidlaw Undergraduate Research and Leadership Scholarship one particular section of this collection, an eighteenth-century collector’s cabinet, ultimately received by the University of Leeds in almost pristine condition, has been the subject of a lengthy study by an undergraduate scholar, Emma Herbert-Davies. The results of this investigation can be explored via the project website, Unlocking the Winchester Cabinet and a virtual exhibition. There is also currently a display of coins from the collection on view in the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds.

Emma Herbet-Davies presenting on the Winchester Cabinet, linked from ‘A corner of tenth century Europe‘.

To any numismatist, coins and medals are probably inherently interesting. None of us began that way, though, and whatever our various routes into numismatics, there must have been a moment when we encountered the thrill – of a connection to the past, of the joy of collecting, of the beauty of the object, of the sense of community this interest can provide. As somebody who has been loosely connected to this project (Emma presented with me at a conference panel on coin collecting, at which I was talking about R. E. Hart, one of the most substantial donors to the Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery Collection), it has been exciting to see how coins and their study have reached out to somebody with no prior experience of the subject, and who is now a passionate and charismatic spokesperson for the subject.

by Eóin O’Donoghue, National University of Ireland Galway

In May and June 2017, I visited the island of Pantelleria to work with the Brock University excavations at the Lago di Venere, supported by a grant from the Royal Numismatic Society. There I examined the numismatic evidence recovered in excavations at the site from the Roman phase of occupation on the island.

Pantelleria itself is located in the Strait of Sicily, roughly midway between the tip Cap Bon in Tunisia and Agrigento on the southwest shore of Sicily. It has a complex history stretching back to the Bronze Age and perhaps earlier. From at least as early as the sixth century BCE it was occupied by Phoenician settlers and coinage suggests the island was called ‘YRNM; subsequently, it became a point of contention in conflicts between Rome and Carthage in the third century BCE. Eventually the island was captured by the Romans in 217 BCE and became known as Cossura and it remained within their control until at least the second century CE. The excavations are focusing on a Romano-Punic sanctuary situated adjacent to a spectacular lake set within a volcanic crater. The site is providing distinctive insights into an early example of Roman and Punic cultural interaction and ‘hybrid’ ritual practices.

Pantelleria, a view from the site.

Following the Roman conquest, the coinage changed from bearing the legend ‘YRNM to COSSVRA, but importantly, maintained the Punic motifs including Astarte/Isis on the obverse. During my time on Pantelleria I had the opportunity to create a catalogue identifying the coins recovered from the excavations to date. Those recovered primarily come from the last two centuries BCE, with examples of Tanit/Astarte on the obverse coupled with inscription of COSSVRA and laurel wreaths decorating the reverse. Further examples represent more standardised Roman coin types that are also thought to come from Pantelleria. These come from the first century BCE and may represent a period after Roman power had stabilised on the island including the adoption of some Roman cultural traits. Other examples come from elsewhere in the Empire, including a denarius of C. Pulcher from 110-109 BCE, and more coins probably minted on Pantelleria itself. Of most significance in the later coins recovered from the Lago di Venere, as well as from other excavations on the island, is the disappearance of Tanit/Astarte from the iconography, but with the subsequent development of a generic female figure on the obverse. It is perhaps an attempt to be a reference to the goddess Roma, but also to Pantescan and Phoenician reverence for female figures. These are issues which are discussed in more detail in the article resulting from this study.

A denarius recovered from Pantelleria

The coins were recovered from secure stratigraphic deposits. The ceramic materials also suggest the structures that the coins are associated with were constructed and used in the last two centuries BCE; consequently, each set of evidence supports the chronology of the other. While the coins come from definitive ancient contexts they do not appear to be part of a deliberate deposition or a hoard. Instead, they seem to have become accidentally part of the destruction and abandonment fill of the sanctuary site. The reasons for this event, or series of events, is not yet clear.

This initial research will be submitted as an article to The Numismatic Chronicle in early 2018. Further study will be carried out in London when I have the opportunity to examine the coins from Pantelleria in the collection of the British Museum. I hope to write an extended paper that considers the significance of the Punic and Roman coins from Pantelleria, especially considering iconographic continuity and its potential to offer insight into the fluidity of early Roman imperialism, a characteristic that became fundamental in the creation of an empire.